Wouter Basson

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Wouter Basson (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈʋʌutər 'basɔn] WOW-tər BAH-son; born 6 July 1950) is a South African cardiologist, drug trafficker, and former head of the country's secret chemical and biological warfare project, Project Coast, during the apartheid era. Nicknamed "Dr Death" by the press for his alleged actions in apartheid South Africa, Basson was acquitted in 2002 of 67 charges, after having been suspended from his military post with full pay in 1999. Among other charges, Basson was alleged to have supplied a "lethal triple cocktail" of powerful muscle relaxants which were used during Operation Duel whose objective was the systematic elimination of SWAPO prisoners of war and SADF members who posed a threat to South African covert operations. The United Nations report "Project Coast: Apartheid's Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme." identifies the triple cocktail as ketamine, succinylcholine, and tubocurarine. Basson was accused of murder, including the killings of hundreds of soldiers from SWAPO who were drugged and then pushed out of an aircraft over the sea, of supplying the poison used to kill anti-apartheid activists, as well as drug dealing charges, fraud, and theft. A 2013 Guardian article reported that he was working as a cardiologist at the Durbanville Mediclinic in Cape Town. In 2021, reports that he was working at a Western Cape Mediclinic facility generated some criticism of the company on social media.