Wouter Basson

Wouter Basson (born 6 July 1950) is a South African cardiologist and former head of the country's secret chemical and biological warfare project, Project Coast, during the apartheid era.

In the 1980s Basson and the project were allegedly involved with attacks and assassinations against members of anti-apartheid movements.

Leaders in South Africa, Angola and Namibia also claimed that the more dangerous chemicals were used for crowd control in the country, although the government claimed otherwise and claimed that chemical weapons were used against South African troops.

Basson provided the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) with lethal chemicals to be used against prominent anti-apartheid activists.

Basson continued to travel all over the world to gather information about chemical and biological warfare programs and set up other shell and paper companies as additional front companies, possibly for money laundering.

It is known that in 1981, when he was working as a personal physician to state president P. W. Botha, the country's Surgeon-General hired Basson to work for and form 7 Medical Battalion Group, a specialist unit of the South African Military Health Service.

His job was to collect information about other countries' chemical and biological warfare capabilities under the name Project Coast.

After his preliminary report, Basson became the head project officer and began to work on the country's chemical and biological weapons capability.

He recruited about 200 researchers from around the world and received annual funds equivalent to $10 million.

In 1982, Basson is alleged to have arranged the killing of 200 SWAPO prisoners in Operation Duel.

Project Coast secretly researched chemical and biological warfare in violation of the international BTWC agreement.

Basson created four front companies; Delta G Scientific Company; Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL), Protechnik and Infadel, which in 1989 was split into two companies – D. John Truter Financial Consultants and Sefmed Information Services.

The companies were used to officially distance the military from the project, to procure necessary chemicals and channel funds for the research.

According to later investigation, Basson had a free rein to do what he wanted.

Delta G did most of the research, production and development of the chemical agents, while RRL developed chemical and biological pathogens and allegedly was involved with genetic engineering.

Protechnik was a large nuclear, biological and chemical warfare plant developing defences against chemical weapons.

Infadel dealt with those on a smaller scale and concentrated on financing and administration of other units and possibly channelling funds between military and research facilities.

Many of the employees were not aware of what they were involved with.

When F. W. de Klerk became president in 1990, he ordered that production of the chemicals be stopped and the lethal agents destroyed.

Basson concentrated on non-lethal chemical agents and chemicals the government had not banned.

That included a large amount of ecstasy and Mandrax that were apparently exported or allegedly sold to drug dealers in communities active in the anti-apartheid movement (cf. Basson brownies).

Most of the stockpile disappeared afterwards.

Scientists working on the project later stated that they believed it was to be used to create drug-laced tear gas.

In January 1992, FRELIMO troops conducted an operation near the South African border.

During the course of the operation, they were allegedly exposed to what was thought to have been a chemical agent.

Some of the soldiers died during the incident and others required hospitalisation.

Investigation by the United Nations, United States and the United Kingdom identified it as BZ nerve agent.

US and Britain began to pressure the South African government and in January 1993 Project Coast was wound down.

Basson was officially retired and hired to dismantle the project, and allegedly profited when some of the South African front companies were privatised.

Later government investigation found that there were large amounts of chemicals and agents missing.

In 1993 the Office of Serious Economic Offences (OSEO) began to investigate Basson's business dealings in an unheard of seven-year forensic audit.

The US and UK governments suspected that during his visits to Libya between 1993 and 1995, Basson might have sold chemical and biological weapons secrets.

In 1995 the South African government hired Basson to work for Transnet, a transportation and infrastructure company and possibly for other more secretive jobs.

In 1995, the government of Nelson Mandela rehired Basson as an army surgeon, allegedly due to US and UK pressure and possibly because the government wanted to keep an eye on him.

In 1996, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began to investigate the SADF and determined that the army had probably used lethal toxins against ANC activists.

Basson was connected to many of these attacks.

Nicknamed "Dr. Death" by the press for his alleged actions in apartheid South Africa, Basson was acquitted in 2002 of 67 charges, after having been suspended from his military post with full pay in 1999.

Among other charges, Basson was alleged to have supplied a "lethal triple cocktail of powerful muscle relaxants which were used during Operation Duel (the systematic elimination of SWAPO prisoners of war and South African Defence Force [SADF] members who posed a threat to South African covert operations). The United Nations report "Project Coast: Apartheid's Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme." identifies the triple cocktail as ketamine, succinylcholine, and tubocurarine.

In 2021, the revelation that he was working at a Western Cape Mediclinic facility caused consternation and protests against the company.

Much of what Basson was working on is still secret.