Interdict secured for Basson hearing

Lawyers for apartheid-era chemical warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson have secured a court interdict to get more information about a hearing into his conduct, the HPCSA said on Monday.

"We received the court interdict in the late afternoon. The committee will sit [on Tuesday] and decide on the way forward," Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) spokeswoman Charmaine Motloung said.

The HPCSA's professional conduct committee would meet behind closed doors on Tuesday to discuss the high court application.

Earlier, Jaap Cilliers, for Basson, and his client walked out of the proceedings to lodge an urgent high court application.

Cilliers said the defence had information that chairman of the hearing, Prof Jannie Hugo, signed a petition calling for Basson to be struck from the medical practitioners' roll.

The defence would approach the high court with evidence of its allegations, and ask the court to rule on the hearing's status.

"We are going to approach the high court this morning to force you to provide this hearing with the necessary information," Cilliers told Hugo on Monday.

"We have evidence that you supported the initiative to have Basson removed from the roll."

When another member of Basson's legal team, Wynanda Coetzee, later returned, Hugo asked her if the defence wanted to cross-examine HPCSA witness, Prof Marc Blockman, before he was excused.

Coetzee said she had been trying to get hold of Cilliers, her instructing attorney.

"They are busy with the application at the high court and cannot be reached. He cannot be at two places at the same time. We ask in the interest of justice that the proceedings be postponed to tomorrow," she said.

Salie Joubert, for HPCSA, protested and said Basson's legal representatives had abandoned the hearing.

"Again, these are delaying tactics by the defence. They received Prof Blockman's affidavit on January 5. We can state that we have not received any legal notice pertaining to the court application so far."

The HPCSA inquiry was held to determine whether Basson acted unethically during his work on the apartheid government's chemical and biological weapons project, Project Coast, during the 1980s and early 1990s.

In his defence, Basson presented nine arguments in which he claimed he acted as a soldier and not a doctor.

Basson is accused of acting unethically by being involved in the large-scale production of Mandrax, cocaine and teargas, of weaponising teargas, and of supplying it to Angola's Unita leader Jonas Savimbi.

He is accused of acting unethically by providing disorientating substances for cross-border kidnappings and making cyanide capsules available for distribution to operatives for use in committing suicide.

In 2002, Basson was acquitted by the High Court in Pretoria of criminal charges arising from his conduct.

The HPCSA reviewed the judgment to establish if there were grounds to hold an inquiry.

The State appealed against the decision of the high court in the Supreme Court of Appeal, but the appeal was dismissed.

The State then went to the Constitutional Court, but that case was dismissed in September 2005.