the rollback of south africa's biological warfare program

possible and have a close working relationship with investigators on the
ground. 209
The prosecution did not appeal the judge’s rulings regarding amnesty or
murders that occurred outside South Africa. Instead, Prosecutor Anton
Ackerman emphasized, after Basson had pleaded guilty to 61 charges, that
most of these charges could not be considered apartheid crimes since they
related to Basson’s self enrichment schemes. Other witnesses have testified
how Basson was the central figure in an international sales and procurement
network that included arms deals involving the Libyan and Pakistani
governments and drug deals. Several additional witnesses testified to Basson’s
involvement in manufacturing drugs and to his luxurious lifestyle.
Basson’s financial dealings were extremely complex throughout the 10
years of Project Coast. The prosecution’s charge sheet covering illegal money
transactions runs several hundreds pages. The entire indictment spans two
volumes. However, despite the complexity of these financial arrangements and
the technical nature of many of the charges involving biological agents and
chemical substances, the judge in this case did not exercise his option under
South African law of calling upon his own expert assessors. 210
During the sixth week of the trial the judge ruled that the State would not
be allowed to use the record of Basson’s bail proceeding in the interest of
national security. The judge also issued several additional rulings that
criticized the procedures used by OSEO investigators in their dealings with
Basson. During the 10th week of the trial, Prosecutor Ackerman submitted a
request for adjournment to permit the Director of Public Prosecutions time to
study the trial transcript and decide whether or not to request that Judge
Harzenberg recuse himself from the case. This motion caused a great deal of
controversy and delayed the trial for several weeks. When the trial resumed,
Ackerman argued that South Africa law required a judge to be impartial, and
that Judge Hartzenberg had shown bias on several counts. These included his
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