COETZEE ORDERED POLICE TO SUPPLY MANDRAX, LSD

Pretoria - Chemicals such as Mandrax and LSD, used in SA's top-secret
chemical and biological warfare programme, were supplied to project leader
Wouter Basson by the SA Police (SAP) on the orders of then police
commissioner Gen. Johan Coetzee.

SA defence members involved in the programme, code-named Project Coast,
also received written indemnity from prosecution for producing Mandrax
methaqualone from former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok.

This information emerged from a transcript of the February 1997 bail
application by the programme's mastermind, Wouter Basson, under arrest at
the time for being in possession of 1000 ecstasy capsules. Until this week
publication of sections of Basson's testimony had been prohibited by a
Pretoria High Court order at the request of the departments of defence and
foreign affairs and by the Council for the Non-proliferation of Weapons of
Mass Destruction.

It was claimed that it would not be in the interests of state security for
the information to be made public. The departments, however, withdrew their
objections this week, two years after Basson was granted bail.

"Mandrax is one of the most potent chemical weapons in the world," Basson
told the court at the time. Any substance that influenced brain function
was important in chemical warfare, Basson testified.

"The new tendency in chemical warfare today is to not kill. There is no
sense in having 5000 dead bodies. The entire chemical warfare attempt in
the world is aimed at substances which will diminish the enemy's
determination and ability to fight," he said. Basson admitted that former
security police chief Gen Basie Smit and SAP forensic laboratory chief Gen.
Lothar Neethling first supplied Project Coast with methaqualone and with
LSD in 1984 to enable the project's toxicologists to develop "certain
abilities in the chemical field".

"We usually received the Mandrax from the police in powder form," he said.
Basson was questioned about his involvement in the manufacture of Mandrax
by the SA Narcotics Bureau during 1993, the court heard, but after
producing written authority issued by (cabinet) ministers and carrying
Vlok's signature to do so, narcotics detectives dropped the matter.

Basson, who also admitted in his bail application that during the 1980s he
had travelled the world to covertly obtain information about chemical and
biological warfare, said British and American authorities had found out
about Project Coast. "During SA's transformation period, the government
requested me to explain certain aspects of the project to the UK and US
intelligence services," Basson testified.

He said that discussions with the foreign intelligence services were
delayed by then president FW de Klerk. "De Klerk was not prepared to make
any presentation to the UK or US because we were in the process of
political transformation and he wanted to first brief Nelson Mandela and
then wanted Mandela to be part of the presentation," the court heard.