General Lothar Paul Neethling (29 August 1935, East Prussia – 11 July 2005) was chief deputy commissioner (second-in-command) of the South African Police in the apartheid era. A highly qualified scientist, General Neethling was alleged to have used police forensic laboratories for the production of poisons to kill anti-apartheid activists, and to have developed chemical and biological weapons for use against the black population in South Africa. He died of lung cancer in Pretoria, aged 69.