On the instructions of Project Officer Wouter Basson, numerous blood samples were drawn from allied black troops in neighboring states. This was supposedly done in connection with an HIV-AIDS research project, but it may be that one of its functions was to acquire HIV-infected blood that could then be used to infect designated enemies.

Dr. Graeme Gibson, a member of the elite Special Operations (SO) unit of the South African Medical Services (SAMS) commanded by Basson, testified that in 1986 he was put in charge of an HIV-AIDS research project. The project entailed taking blood from black allies of the South African Defence Force (SADF), including troops from the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA: National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), in order to evaluate the strategic effect of HIV on both the SADF and the military capacity of neighboring states. Numerous blood samples were collected and analyzed in this context, and the resulting data were provided to the Chief of Staff for Planning, who in turn passed it on to members of the State Security Council, a cabinet-level body.

When Gibson left the SADF in 1989, Basson asked him to set up a front company to continue certain SAMS projects covertly. In March 1989 Gibson founded Lannius Consultants, one of whose two principal projects was to conduct anti-viral AIDS research. Gibson was to report to Basson and Knobel every six weeks, but this particular project—which was ostensibly intended to test the effects of the Thymu-Vocal peptide and AZT on AIDS patients—never really commenced. Basson later admitted that various anti-AIDS research schemes he proposed had essentially been devised as cover stories to facilitate the laundering of large sums of money. This may well apply to the abortive Lannius AIDS project.

It may be that one of Basson's reasons for initiating AIDS research projects was more sinister, however. Shortly after he was hired as a scientific researcher at Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL), Dr. Mike Odendaal claimed that he was given a tube of blood by RRL's R&D director André Immelman, who told him it had been drawn from a dying AIDS patient at 1 Military Hospital and thence passed on to him by Basson. Basson told Immelman that this same blood sample should be freeze-dried so that it might later be used against "opponents" of the government. Another RRL director, Dr. Schalk van Rensburg, also testified that he was concerned that HIV-contaminated blood might be used to infect other persons.

Although there is no firm evidence of this, it is possible that samples of HIV-infected blood were later used to carry out assassination operations. Allegedly at Basson's instructions, Immelman secretly transferred various highltoxic substances to military and police personnel through various channels. Some of these dangerous materials were provided to Dr. R. F. Botha (alternately known as "Koos," "Mr. R," and "Frans Brink") and thence to Vernon Lange (otherwise known as "Mr. T" and "Theo"), both of whom were operatives of the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB), a covert assassination unit operating under the aegis of the Special Forces (SF). Others were provided directly to Chris Smit, Gert Otto, and Manie van Staden, three SB officers from the SAP. According to the 1989 "sales list" (TRC document 52), as well as firsthand testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings or Basson's criminal trial, Immelman passed such items on, either to the aforementioned persons in innocuous public places like restaurants, or to Basson himself in the latter's office at South African Medical Services (SAMS) headquarters in Centurion. Another recipient of RRL's poisons was Johnny Koortzen, an ex-SADF psychologist who in 1988 assumed control over Systems Research and Development (SRD), a company that bioengineer Jan Lourens had set up in part to manufacture special "applicators," i.e., arcane assassination devices. Some of these toxic materials and devices were subsequently used to assassinate designated "enemies of the state"—guerrillas in neighboring countries, troublesome prisoners, untrustworthy members of the security forces, or activists in the African National Congress (ANC) and other South African opposition groups.

In 1990 President F. W. De Klerk prohibited the carrying out of any further work on lethal CBW agents, and in 1993 Project Coast was officially terminated. The stocks of BW agents produced by South Africa were supposedly destroyed in conformity with international agreements, despite the fact that the actual destruction process was never independently verified and there is evidence that some of the substances were removed and retained by Coast scientists. The current government still has access to the type of technical expertise and the sort of sophisticated R&D facilities that would enable it to initiate a new BW program and misuse infected blood again, but there is little reason to suppose that it has any interest in doing so.

	Updated February 2004