The state has claimed that the poison used to try to kill Frank Chikane was manufactured by the South African Defence Force in its top-secret chemical and biological warfare project, Project Coast, headed by Dr Wouter Basson.
This is one of the startling allegations in the summary of salient facts attached to the charge sheet against Johann van der Merwe, the general in charge of the security branch from 1986-1988; Adriaan Vlok, the minister of law and order from 1986-1991; Christoffel Lodewikus Smith, the commander of a security branch unit tasked with killing "in extreme cases" anti-apartheid activists; and Gert Otto and Hermanus "Manie" van Staden, both officers in Smith's unit.
The five men are charged with attempting to murder Chikane, then a prominent anti-apartheid activist and now the director-general of the presidency, by impregnating his clothing with a poison called Paraoxon and, alternatively, of conspiring to murder opponents of the regime.
Their trial is set down for August 17 in the Pretoria High Court and the prosecutor is Anton Ackermann, who successfully prosecuted Eugene de Kock, the erstwhile Vlakplaas hit-squad commander.
Mac Maharaj, a former transport minister and one of the members of the ANC leadership that pushed for the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), said that the decision to charge a minister of the former regime with an apartheid crime was a milestone in the country's political history, especially as the alternative charge related to general conspiracy.
He said that the claim made by the former regime before the TRC - that it was never official government policy to commit crimes, including murder, against its people, but that such crimes had been the fault of a "few bad apples" - would at last be unmasked.
"Everyone seems to have forgotten the TRC," said Maharaj. "In its submission, the former regime stated that it was not its policy to commit illegal acts, but that it was merely some bad guys in the apartheid security apparatus.
"But now, if a minister is found guilty, or pleads guilty to the charges - that he gave a list of anti-apartheid activists, who had been earmarked to be killed, to the security branch so that these people could be killed - that changes everything, doesn't it?"
It was former president FW de Klerk who told the TRC that he knew nothing about apartheid-era police crimes and observers have said it would be interesting to see the extent to which he might be implicated, either during the trial - or later, depending on what kind of co-operation Vlok and Van der Merwe gave the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
On Saturday Dave Steward, the executive director of the FW de Klerk Foundation, said reports that De Klerk had "thrown down the gauntlet and dared the NPA to charge him in connection with apartheid-era crimes" were untrue and malicious - and that all there was to say was that it was very unlikely that Vlok and Van der Merwe would try to implicate De Klerk - "because there was nothing on which he can be implicated".
The state alleges that in the 1980s Dr Andre Immelman, who is number two on the witness list, was told by Basson to do research into the use of poisons against individuals and later instructed to give one of the substances, Paraoxon, to security branch members for their use.
In 1987, the state has alleged, the "leadership" of the "security community" took the decision to that prominent anti-apartheid activists should be killed "in extreme cases".
The state says Vlok and Van der Merwe were present at the meeting where the decision was made and where it was decided that a special unit in the security branch would carry out the decision.
Smith was the commander of the unit and Otto and Van Staden were members; and when General Sebastiaan "Basie" Smit became chief of the security branch, he was told what the unit's goals were, the state alleges.
Immelman is alleged to have given the Paraoxon to Smith, Otto and Van Staden on April 4, 1989. They allegedly enlisted the help of Charles Zeelie, a Johannesburg security policeman, who is witness number three.
With his assistance, they put the poison on Chikane's clothes on April 23 1989. They tampered with Chikane's clothes at the then-Jan Smuts airport, through which Chikane was travelling on his way to Namibia.
Chikane became gravely ill in Namibia on April 24 1989. He was flown back to South Africa where he was hospitalised. He then flew to the United States where, if he had not had access to exceptional medical treatment, he would probably have died. Tests later showed that he had traces of Paraoxon in his blood.
Basson, the former head of Project Coast, was acquitted in 2002 on some charges and had others dropped because the alleged offences occurred outside South Africa's borders. The charges had included that he had committed 229 murders.
Smit was the general who headed up the security branch from 1988 and was, among other things, fingered by the Goldstone Commission in 1994 for fomenting violence during the "transitional" years from 1989 onwards.
Another witness in the trial is De Kock, the former commander of the Vlakplaas hit squad, who was sentenced in 1996 to two life sentences plus 212 years for a range of crimes including murder.
But the story behind the charges is unlikely to be disclosed in open court because the matter is likely to end in an agreed plea bargain even before it gets properly under way.
Panyaza Lesufi, the spokesperson for the NPA, said on Friday night: "It's an open secret that we have had numerous talks with the accused. And let's just say that a plea bargain is an option that the NPA would indeed be prepared to consider."
Jan Wagener, the Pretoria attorney for the five men, said: "We have had plenty of discussions with the NPA. And, let's face it, it's a long road to August 17 . Who knows? Perhaps I will be instructed by my clients to plead guilty."
"C'mon," said someone on the NPA's "apartheid crimes" staff, who did not want to be identified, "of course the NPA's 'understanding' is that Vlok will plead guilty. And, of course, there have been plea-bargain discussions. How else do you entice such a person to admit previous crimes? Plea bargaining is the nature of the beast."
De Kock said this week: "Of course some kind of deal has been set up. I lifted the lid on the Chikane poisoning in 1994 and yet the NPA has been sitting on it all this time.
"Why is it only now that this case is coming to court? I believe that someone or other wrote off what I have to say on the basis that I am a convicted murderer. That's true.
"What I am interested in is all the unconvicted murderers."