Scientist offered S. African bioweapons
Gave sample to FBI contact in 2002
Joby Warrick and John Mintz
Washington Post
Apr. 20, 2003 12:00 AM
PRETORIA, South Africa - Daan Goosen's calling card to the FBI was a vial of bacteria he had freeze-dried and hidden inside a toothpaste tube for secret passage to the United States.
From among hundreds of flasks in his Pretoria lab, the South African scientist picked a man-made strain that was sure to impress: a microbial Frankenstein that fused the genes of a common intestinal bug with DNA from the pathogen that causes the deadly illness gas gangrene.
"This will show the Americans what we are capable of," Goosen said at the time.
On May 6, 2002, Goosen slipped the parcel to a retired CIA officer who couriered the microbes 8,000 miles for a drop-off with the FBI. If U.S. officials liked what they saw, Goosen said he was prepared to offer much more: An entire collection of pathogens developed by a secret South African bioweapons research program Goosen once headed.
Goosen's extraordinary offer to the FBI, outlined in documents obtained by the Washington Post and interviews with key participants, promised scores of additional vials containing the bacteria that cause anthrax, plague, salmonella and botulism, as well as antidotes for many of the diseases.
Several strains, like the bacterial hybrid in the toothpaste tube, had been genetically altered, a technique used by weapons scientists to make diseases harder to detect and defeat. All were to be delivered to the U.S. government for safekeeping and to help strengthen U.S. defenses against future terrorism attacks.
U.S. officials considered the offer but balked at the asking price - $5 million and immigration permits for Goosen and up to 19 associates and family members to come to the United States.
The deal collapsed in confusion last year after skeptical FBI agents turned the matter over to South African authorities, who twice investigated Goosen but never charged him.
Participants in the failed deal differ on what happened and why. But they agree that the bacterial strains remain in private hands in South Africa, where they have continued to attract attention from individuals interested in acquiring them.
The episode throws new light on the extraordinarily difficult task of preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. South Africa, which built nuclear, chemical and biological arsenals before the 1991 end of apartheid, renounced its weapons in 1993, and sought to destroy all traces of them, including manuals and feedstocks.
"The weapons programs were ostensibly terminated, yet clearly they weren't able to destroy everything," said Jeffrey Bale of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, which is carrying out a study of South Africa's weapons programs.
"The fact that Goosen and others are providing samples and being approached by foreign parties suggests that these things never really went away."
KJC |
