Government seeks extradition of apartheid-era South African official

The Namibian authorities said on Thursday they had approached the South African government for information pertaining to an apartheid-era chemical warfare expert who allegedly committed atrocities against hundreds of Namibians prior to the country’s independence from South Africa in 1990.

The chemical warfare expert, Wouter Basson, is a highly qualified heart surgeon who worked for the South African army. Dubbed “Dr Death” in newspapers in the region for the way he conducted research into germ warfare and the poisoning of opponents of the white government, he is considered one of the most wanted men in Namibia.

Officials in Namibia told IRIN that they had formally asked the South African government to provide all the information it could pertaining to charges that Basson was responsible for poisoning up to 200 fighters of the Namibian Southwest Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO).

They said they had taken note of the fact that on 11 October this year, a Pretoria court trying Basson on a range of counts, had dropped the Namibian poisoning charges against him on the grounds that a person could not be charged in a South African court on charges of conspiring to murder when the murder itself was committed in another country. The judge also said a 1989 amnesty proclamation by Louis Pienaar, South Africa’s last colonial administrator in Namibia, also protected Basson from prosecution on the poisoning charges in South Africa.

“The Namibian government is watching this case very, very closely,” Veiccoh Nghiwete, Permanent Secretary at the Namibian foreign ministry, told IRIN.

Namibia, he added, would take the next legal step towards Basson’s extradition once information provided on the case was sufficent to draw up a case. “Obviously, we have to await the outcome of the South African trial,” he added.

During the hearing so far, it has been alleged in affidavits filed with the Pretoria high court that Basson played a role in the disappearance of many SWAPO activists. The court papers also disclosed that many SWAPO activists arrested by South African security and intelligence officials at the time had been injected with a lung paralysis chemical developed by Basson causing them to suffocate and die. In many cases, it was alleged further, their bodies were dumped at sea by the South African Air Force.