PRETORIA South Africa's apartheid-era military biochemical warfare expert Wouter Basson, dubbed 'Dr. Death', was a chemical spy in the United States early in his career, he told the Pretoria high court on Monday.

Basson, charged with 46 crimes ranging from murder and fraud to drug trafficking, took the stand for the first time Monday in the trial that started in October 1999.

Basson headed the former South African Defense Force's (SADF) Sinister Chemical and Biological Warfare Program in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The program was involved in the development of toxins, germs, drugs and lethal implements to kill enemies of the apartheid state, AFP reported.

Basson, dressed in a dark suit and tie with a golden tie pin, appeared comfortable in the witness box, well-spoken and at times joking and boasting about his own abilities.

Basson said his training in chemical and biological warfare began in the United States where, acting under the guise of a military service evader, he infiltrated organizations on the left and right of the U.S. political spectrum and gained access to top-secret government data.

He also used financial and technological methods to get information and contacts as a spy, which was a new field for him.

Basson told the court he wanted at first to specialize in gynecology, but his plans as a medical doctor changed when he was called up for military service for two years.

At the end of his compulsory SADF duty, Basson, ranked then as lieutenant colonel, decided to stay on as he enjoyed the military environment.

Basson said in the early 1980s senior SADF officers approached him about getting information on the chemical and biological warfare capabilities available to eastern bloc and other countries at the time.

Basson said there was nobody else with even his minimal experience able to do this.

He said he had regarded the creation of a chemical and biological warfare capability for South Africa as an "interesting intellectual problem".

If South African troops were indeed under threat from such attacks, he regarded it as an honor to be involved in such a project, Basson said.

Basson stressed that his only specific instructions were that he would have to work covertly. Money would be made available, and the methods he used to get information were left up to him.

The trial continued Tuesday.