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ROTTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch court opens
hearings on Friday against a man accused of helping
former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein commit war crimes
and genocide by providing him with materials for
chemical weapons.
Frans van Anraat, 62, is charged with supplying
thousands of tonnes of raw materials for chemical
weapons used in the 1980-1988 war against Iran and
against Iraqi Kurds, including a 1988 attack on the
town of Halabja, in which an estimated 5,000 people
were killed.
Prosecutors say the United Nations has described Van
Anraat, who is also charged with complicity in war
crimes and genocide, as "one of the most important
middlemen in Iraq's acquisition of chemical
material".
Prosecutors and the defence are expected to discuss
preparations for trial at Friday's hearing at a
high-security court in the port city of Rotterdam.
"The images of the gas attack on the Kurdish city
Halabja were a shock. But I did not give the order
to do that. How many products, such as bullets do we
make in the Netherlands?" Van Anraat said in a 2003
interview with Dutch magazine Revu.
Van Anratt was arrested by Dutch officials at his
Amsterdam home in December.
He was also detained in Milan in January 1989
following a U.S. request but was released after two
months. He then went to Iraq where it is thought he
stayed until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, when he
returned to the Netherlands through Syria.
The United States said Iraq's suspected weapons of
mass destruction were one of its main reasons for
going to war in 2003, but it has yet to discover
significant stockpiles.
Reuters
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