Former 'Dr Death' wants professors removed from inquiry panel

Cardiologist Wouter Basson would have been struck from the medical practitioners register had he not gone to court, his lawyer told the Pretoria high court yesterday.

“If we had not gone to court, Dr Basson would not be a doctor by now. He would have been been removed,” Advocate Jaap Cilliers said.

He said he could not wait for the tribunal that has found Basson guilty of professional misconduct to hand sentence then appeal as argued by the Health Profession Council of South Africa's advocate Terry Motau.

Basson approached the court on urgent basis on Monday and was granted an interim order stopping the sentencing proceedings based on potential partiality on two panel members of the inquiry.

The former head of apartheid chemical and biological expert wants chairman Professor Jannie Hugo and Professor Eddie Mhlanga to reveal their membership and positions in organisations agitating for his removal from the register.

Though Hugo has disclosed his membership of SA Medical Association, Basson questions the fairness of the tribunal and wants this information to bring a recusal application against the duo.

Advocate Cilliers, who has said he had information Hugo held an influential position in one of the organisations, said Hugo sat there and said nothing when Section27 head Mark Heywood testified that all SAMA members supported the petition.

“(Hugo) was conspicuously silent on whether he knew of the petition, only that he did not participate. A witness testifies that all members of SAMA signed the petition but he does not say I am a member. That is a bigger transgression than being a member,” he said.

The council's advocate Motau argued that Basson had other remedies other than running to court.

He said Basson could have approached the panel for reasons for withholding this information.

“Then (Basson) could have, based on those reasons, bring a recusal application. (He has) not spelled out prospects of success in the recusal application, which they made it clear they intend to bring,'' he said.

The council found Basson guilty of unprofessional conduct for his role as head of apartheid regime's chemical and biological warfare code-named Project Coast in the 1980s.

Judge Albertus Bam reserved judgment for today.