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Survivors of nerve gas attack testify in
Dutch Iraq genocide trial
1.12.2005
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THE HAGUE, Dec 1
(AFP) - 14h07 - Survivors of a 1987 alleged Iraqi
nerve gas attack on an Iranian town gave emotional
testimony Thursday in the trial of a Dutch
businessman accused of complicity in genocide for
supplying chemical ingredients used by Saddam
Hussein in attacks on Kurds in Iraq and Iran.
Frans Van Anraat, 63, is the first person to appear
in court on genocide charges in connection with the
1988 poison gas attacks on the Kurdish town of
Halabja in northern Iraq.
The massacre, which killed more than 5,000 people in
a single day, also features among the preliminary
charges against former Iraqi leader Saddam,
currently on trial in Baghdad.
In addition Van Anraat is charged with aiding war
crimes for alleged Iraqi chemical attacks on Kurdish
towns in Iran.
In an emotional testimony Iranian Kurdish day
laborer Gader Molanpoor told the court Wednesday
that he lost his pregnant wife and three children in
the attack on the town of Sardasht.
He was in a neighbouring village but his family was
in Sardasht when the attack occurred.
"I saw my children, they could not stand up, they
were dizzy, throwing up," he said.
In the days following the attack Molanpoor tried
desperately to get medical help for his three
children and heavily pregnant wife. |
Frans Van Anraat
Photo: Internet
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP |
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"They had eye problems and their skin burned ...
nobody dared to touch them and I had to put them in
the ambulance myself," he told the court, fighting
back tears.
Eventually in the days after the attack he watched
his whole family die one by one.
Molanpoor also got blisters on his hands as he tried
to wash the chemicals off his children and still
suffers from health problems as a result.
Leila Marouf Zadeh, a social worker from Sardasht,
testified that she saw Iraqi planes attacking her
town, dropping something that looked yellow and
smelled of garlic and rotten apples.
"In the hospital I saw many people throwing up, with
red skin, they were itching and after a while they
got blisters and eventually their skin turned
black," she told the court.
After a while she also started having complaints
herself.
"My main problems were pain, blisters and blindness.
My eyes hurt the worst, and my lungs," Marouf Zadeh
said.
Her testimony was interrupted several times as she
took medication for her various complaints.
In the 1980s Van Anraat acted as a sort of middle
man buying chemicals on the world market and selling
them on to Iraq despite export bans in place.
The materials he supplied included thiodiglycol and
phosphorus oxychloride, both described as
ingredients for mustard and nerve gases.
Van Anraat has admitted to selling the chemical
components to Iraq, but maintains that he was not
aware of the use to which they were put.
Earlier in the trial a prosecution expert witness
testified that Van Anraat was the sole supplier of
thiodiglycol to Iraq from 1985 onwards.
According to the chemicals expert, it was "the most
logical to assume that from mid-1985 mustard gas
used in attacks was made with ingredients supplied,
among others, by Van Anraat."
If convicted he faces a maximum sentence of twenty
years in prison.
The trial is expected to take another two weeks,
with a verdict due on December 23.
AFP
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