'Charge them with treason'
2001-11-26 21:26
Pretoria - Generals who worked with apartheid-era chemical warfare expert
Dr Wouter Basson while he headed the former SA Defence Force's
clandestine chemical and biological warfare programme should be
charged with treason if claims made by Basson were true, the
Pretoria High Court heard on Monday.
Basson has claimed in court that he shared apartheid South
Africa's chemical and biological warfare secrets with the Libyans,
East Germans and Russians with the blessing of his superiors while
he headed the programme in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Senior State prosecutor Anton Ackermann said if the court
accepted Basson's version, "there must be several generals who must
be turning in their graves".
"The SADF was at the time fighting a war against especially the
Russians in Angola but, according to Basson, he was at the same
time giving them information about our chemical warfare research
that they could used against the SADF," Ackermann said.
If Basson could be believed, then the Libyans - who were behind
a large scale terror campaign against South Africa - flew around
the country "to their heart's content" while under surveillance by
National Intelligence as part of this arrangement, he said.
"I want to put it on record that I lived in South Africa
continuously in 1986, 1987 and 1988 and that this country was the
target of a large scale terror campaign in which Libya's role was
significant.
"There could only have been one purpose for the Libyans flying
around in South Africa, and that was to identify targets for terror
attacks.
"The only interest the Libyans had in South Africa was to supply
bombs and land mines for use against the South African population."
Argument will continue for several days.
Basson has denied guilt on 46 charges, ranging from drug
trafficking to murder, conspiracy and fraud.
- SAPA