SA seeks new trial for 'Dr Death'

[XXPANTHAXX]

State prosecutors have applied for permission to retry the
former head of the country's apartheid-era germ warfare
programme, Dr Wouter Basson.

Dubbed 'Dr Death' by the South African media, in April 2002
he was found not guilty of 46 charges of murder, conspiracy
and drug trafficking.

State lawyers are asking South Africa's Constitutional Court
for a retrial.

They argue that the white judge in the original trial was
biased. A Supreme Court appeal was rejected in 2003.

During the two-and-a-half year trial, witnesses had testified
to a catalogue of horrific killing methods including "smart"
poisons, which would only affect black people.

It was also alleged that Dr Basson had hoarded enough cholera
and anthrax to start epidemics.

Witnesses testified that he had developed sugar laced with
salmonella, cigarettes with anthrax, chocolates with botulism
and whisky with herbicide.

Dr Basson said he had been following orders and portrayed
himself as a scientist who had sought ways to combat plant
disease potato blight and an epidemic of hepatitis A.