MILITARY MADE ECSTASY, MANDRAX - SCIENTIST

CAPE TOWN - A military front company manufactured almost a ton of the
designer drug ecstasy, enough for a million tablets with a street value of
R100-million, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard yesterday.

The drug was made in 1992 at the request of Dr Wouter Basson, head of the
SADF's chemical and biological warfare programme dubbed Project Coast, and
the written order was signed by Surgeon-General Niel Knobel, scientist Dr
Johan Koekemoer told the TRC.

Scientists working on Project Coast also manufactured large quantities of
methaquelone, the active ingredient in Mandrax.

Koekemoer, chief researcher at Delta G Scientific, a Midrand-based military
front company, said he was told the drugs would be used as an
"incapacitant" in chemical warfare. He had concerns about the ecstasy order
- - he did not regard the drug as an effective chemical-warfare agent - and
raised them with Basson.

"I did not consider ecstasy to be a very good incapacitant in the
chemical-warfare sense. It enhances empathy and interpersonal
communication. I would not like to love my enemy."

But Basson urged him to press on, and he developed a new method to
manufacture the drug to almost 100% purity.

Before that, he had also raised his concerns with police forensics chief
Lothar Neethling - and ended up discussing the chemistry and manufacture of
the drug with him: "I gathered that I had his tacit approval."

Koekemoer, a former professor of organic chemistry at the Rand Afrikaans
University who joined Delta G in 1986, delivered 920kg of ecstasy to the
offices of Dr Philip Mijburgh, managing director of Delta G and Basson's
right-hand man. The SADF paid R2,5-million for it.

"I trusted the people in charge of me were ethical people; I mean they were
medical doctors and so on."

Koekemoer said he did not know what happened to the consignment. He later
found out it had been put into capsules at Delta G, and he was arrested
last year when police found ecstasy capsules in his office. The charges
have been withdrawn.

Basson, arrested before Koekemoer, is facing charges of possession of 2,000
ecstasy capsules, in addition to charges of murder, conspiracy to murder
and fraud.

Koekemoer said he was not personally involved in the manufacture of
Mandrax, but he had heard the drug was to be used as an "incapacitant". He
said it was more suited to that purpose than ecstasy, because it was a
"hypnotic sedative which could affect the way you react in a war
situation".

Koekemoer also told the commission about experiments with BZ, a
chemical-warfare agent used by the US in Vietnam; various insecticides; and
a particularly virulent strain of tear gas called CR. All the projects were
authorised by Basson.