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Dutchman on trial today on Iraq genocide
charge
21.11.2005
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THE HAGUE, Nov 21
(AFP) - 16h56 - The trial of a Dutch businessman,
accused of complicity in genocide for supplying
ingredients for chemical weapons used by the Saddam
Hussein regime in a 1988 massacre of Kurds, opened
before a Dutch court Monday.
Frans Van Anraat, 63, is the first person to appear
in court on genocide charges in connection with the
poison gas attacks on the Kurdish town of Halabja in
northern Iraq. The massacre also features among the
preliminary charges against former Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein.
"Van Anraat is being prosecuted for genocide and war
crimes for supplying ingredients for the chemical
weapons of Saddam Hussein," special Dutch war crimes
prosecutor Fred Teeven told the court in The Hague.
"The use of these weapons by the Baghdad regime led
to the deaths of thousands of victims in Iran and
Iraq," he added.
Van Anraat, dressed in a blue cardigan, sat
defiantly with his arms folded as he listened to the
charges against him. When the court asked him if he
wanted to say something he replied his lawyers would
speak for him.
On the first day of the trial the court dismissed
several defence motions arguing that it did not have
jurisdiction to hear the case. The judges also
rejected a defence request to free Van Anraat from
provisional custody.
As well as supplying chemicals used in Halabja, Van
Anraat is alleged to have been connected to chemical
attacks on the northern Iraqi villages of Goktapa
and Birjinni. |
Frans Van Anraat
Photo: Internet
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP |
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He also supplied chemicals used in gas attacks on
seven villages in Iran between 1986 and 1988 during
the Iran-Iraq war, the prosecution has said. For
those attacks he is charged with war crimes.
The materials he allegedly supplied included
thiodiglycol and phosphorus oxychloride, both
described as ingredients for mustard and nerve
gases.
Some of the victims of the attacks in connection
with which Van Anraat is accused were in court
Monday.
Dayna Mohammad survived the Halabja massacre when
she was just 11 years old. Ten members of her family
died and she herself still suffers medical problems
because of it, she told AFP.
"I am not here for myself but I want to be a voice
for my city, Halabja, which suffered," 28-year-old
Mohammad said.
She has joined the proceedings as an injured party
and plans to ask for damages.
Van Anraat has not denied selling chemical
components to Iraq, but always maintained that he
was not aware of the use to which they were put.
In police statements read out in court Van Anraat
said he asked if the chemicals could be used to make
nerve gas and was assured by his Iraqi clients that
the ingredients would be used in the textile
industry.
The Dutchman said he had seen images of the Halabja
attack in 1988.
"Horrible images of dead children, they turned my
stomach," the judge quoted him as saying.
"In 1988 I started to get a real understanding that
the chemicals could be used for dubious means," Van
Anraat told police, according to the judges.
In a seeming contradiction Van Anraat told the
authorities in later questioning that he had already
been told in 1986 that thiodiglycol could be used to
make nerve gas.
According to the Dutch authorities, the US customs
launched an investigation into Van Anraat in the
late 1980s and concluded he was involved in four
illegal shipments of thiodiglycol from the United
States to Europe.
He was arrested in 1989 in Italy on a US request,
but subsequently managed to flee to Iraq.
He remained there until US-led forces invaded the
country in 2003 and then returned to the
Netherlands, Dutch officials said.
In 2000 the United States withdrew the request for
his extradition for reasons as yet unspecified. He
was finally arrested here in December 2004 on
charges of complicity in genocide and war crimes.
The trial is expected to take three weeks. The court
is set to hand down a verdict on December 23.
AFP
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