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Iraq

Dutch bidnessman help Sammy gas Kurds

2006-12-20

BAGHDAD - Prosecutors in Saddam Hussein’s trial for genocide against ethnic Kurds showed graphic footage on Tuesday of dead civilians, including infants, allegedly killed in chemical attacks on their villages. Chief prosecutor Munqith Al Faroon also showed the court a memo that praised a Dutch businessman who was convicted in December 2005 for supplying Baghdad with banned chemical weapons that were used in the offensive that prosecutors say killed more than 180,000 Kurds. Faroon, attempting to implicate Saddam and his six co- defendants for the Anfal (Spoils of War) campaign, showed the court an internal memo that praised Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat for his role in providing banned weapons. After he was granted Iraqi citizenship on personal orders by Saddam, van Anraat fled Iraq after the dictator was toppled and in December 2005 was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of complicity in war crimes. Rat bastard. He should burn in hell next to Sammy. ‘He supplied our institutions ... with rare and banned chemical weapons,’ read the memo dated 1992 which circulated inside the president’s office.

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Europe

Dutchman jailed for 15 years over Iraq poison gas

2005-12-24

THE HAGUE - A court jailed a Dutch businessman for 15 years on Friday after finding him guilty of complicity in war crimes for selling chemicals to Iraq used to carry out gas attacks, but acquitted him of genocide charges. Which Saddam never had, of course ... The court said Frans van Anraat, 63, supplied the raw materials knowing they would be used to make poison gas by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980-1988 war with Iran and used against its own Kurdish population, including an attack on the town of Halabja in 1988. The sentence was the maximum that could be imposed for the charge. He'll serve what .. five, six years .. out on parole, welfare payments afterwards? “His deliveries facilitated the attacks and constitute a very serious war crime. He cannot counter with the argument that this would have happened even without his contribution,” the presiding judge told a packed court. ”Even the maximum sentence is not enough to cover the seriousness of the acts,” he said. I'd say.

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Europe

Dutchman suspected of helping Saddam goes on trial

2005-11-22

A Dutch businessman accused of selling chemicals to Iraq knowing Saddam Hussein would use them for poison gas attacks went on trial in the Netherlands on Monday on charges of complicity in war crimes and genocide. Frans van Anraat, 63, is charged with supplying thousands of tonnes of agents for poison gas used by Saddam's military in Iraq's 1980-1988 war against Iran and against its own Kurdish population, including an attack on the town of Halabja in 1988. Prosecutor Fred Teeven told a pre-trial hearing that Van Anraat continued to supply chemicals after the Halabja attack, which killed an estimated 5,000 people 17 years ago this week. A small group demonstrating outside the Hague court displayed dozens of photographs of Kurdish victims of chemical weapons. They held a red banner reading "Genocide Never Again". "I hope he gets a life sentence," said Amir Gadir of Victims of Genocide Against Kurds in Halabja. The defence said Van Anraat did not know what Iraq intended to do with the materials he provided and had stopped shipments to Iraq after the Halabja attack. His lawyers said there was no convincing evidence linking material Van Anraat supplied to chemical weapons used by Iraq. Saddam's own trial for war crimes began in Baghdad in October. He has denied the charges. United Nations weapons inspectors have said Van Anraat was an important middle man supplying Iraq with chemical agents.

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Europe

Dutchman in Iraq genocide charges

2005-03-18

EFL Prosecutors in the Netherlands have formally charged a Dutch businessman with complicity in genocide for selling chemicals to Iraq's former regime. Frans van Anraat, 62, is accused of selling US and Japanese chemicals which were used to produce poison gas. The gases are said to have been used to kill more than 5,000 in a 1988 attack on the Kurdish Iraqi town of Halabja. Mr van Anraat earlier admitted selling chemicals but told Dutch TV he had not known what they would be used for. The full trial of the businessman - the first Dutch national to be prosecuted for genocide - is not due to begin for several months. Dutch finding a spine after van Gogh's murder? Evidence being used by prosecutors includes information obtained from the former head of Iraq's chemical weapons programme, Ali Hassan al-Majid, otherwise known as Chemical Ali. Frans van Anraat listened to the charges on Friday in the Rotterdam courtroom in the presence of four survivors of the Halabja attack. The prosecution said there was a direct link between the injuries of two victims and a chemical substance known as TDG, allegedly supplied by the businessman. He is charged with supplying thousands of tons of raw materials for chemical weapons used in the 1980-1988 war against Iran and against Iraqi Kurds. According to prosecutors, the United Nations has described Mr van Anraat as "one of the most important middlemen in Iraq's acquisition of chemical material". The prosecutors say the suspect was aware of the final purpose for the base materials he supplied. But in a 2003 interview, Mr van Anraat denied being aware of the attack. "The images of the gas attack on the Kurdish city Halabja were a shock. But I did not give the order to do that," he told Dutch magazine Revu. "No, no ... I thought they would use the chemical weapons for peaceful uses." Prosecutors say the Dutchman had been a suspect since 1989, when he was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the US government. Kurds have demanded justice over the Halabja attack But he was later released and fled to Iraq, where he remained until 2003. which means he was there before, during and after Gulf 1 During that time, reports say he fed information to the Dutch intelligence agency on Saddam Hussein's weapons programme. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, he returned to the Netherlands and was arrested in December 2004 at his Amsterdam home. The UN suspects he made 36 separate shipments of chemicals via the Belgian port of Antwerp through Aqaba in Jordan to Iraq, the prosecution says.

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Iraq-Jordan

Dutch Arrest Saddam's Suspected Nerve Gas Supplier

2004-12-07

Police have arrested a Dutch national once sought by the United States on suspicion of supplying thousands of tons of ingredients for mustard gas and nerve gas to the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. "The man is suspected of supplying thousands of tons of raw materials for chemical weapons between 1984 and 1988 to the former regime in Baghdad," the public prosecution service said in a statement Tuesday. The 62 year-old suspect, identified as Frans van Anraat on Dutch television, was arrested in Amsterdam Monday. The United Nations described him as Saddam's most important middleman for acquiring chemical materials, prosecutors said. "The chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government in the war against Iran and against the Kurdish population in north Iraq," the statement said. Iraq used chemical weapons to kill 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988 and fought a brutal war with Iran from 1980-1988. Van Anraat is suspected of breaching the law of war and of complicity to genocide, and will be brought before a court in the Dutch town of Arnhem later this week. He is suspected of having had direct contact with Iraqi authorities and using financial fronts to cover his tracks, according to the international investigation which led to the arrest. He worked through a Panamanian company based in Lugano, Switzerland, according to investigations by authorities in the Netherlands, the United States, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Jordan. The inquiry centered on 36 deliveries of raw materials for chemical weapons. The ingredients for mustard gas and nerve gas came from Japan and the United States. A criminal investigation by U.S. customs authorities based in Baltimore a few years ago found that Van Anraat had been involved in four shipments of thiodiglycol, an industrial chemical used in making mustard gas, to Iraq. The shipments originated in the United States, were shipped to Europe and reached Iraq after passing through Belgium's Antwerp port and Aqaba in Jordan. Washington had asked the Dutch government to arrest Van Anraat in December 1997, but police could not track him down, according to a transcript of parliamentary questions to the Dutch Interior Minister last year. The request for his arrest was withdrawn in November 2000, without an explanation. Van Anraat was detained in Milan in January 1989 following a U.S. request, but he was released after two months. He then headed to Iraq where it is thought he stayed until the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 when he returned to the Netherlands through Syria, the public prosecution said. Wonder what he knows about Iraq's more recent chemical program? Bet he'd be willing to cut a deal, being he's in it for the money and not a jihadi.

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