Dutch businessman who sold chemicals to Saddam appeals war crimes conviction  2.4.2007

Hearings at the Hague Appeals Court run through the end of April, with a verdict likely in mid-May.

Van Anraat's case was the first Iraqi war crimes case to be heard anywhere when it began in 2005. Since then, trials at the Iraqi Special Tribunal have begun, including the ongoing prosecution of six of Saddam's senior officers for allegedly orchestrating the "al-Anfal Campaign" of attacks that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds.

Saddam had been the seventh suspect in that case before he was hanged on Dec. 30 for an unrelated massacre of Shiite Muslims in 1982.

Though Van Anraat's lawyers initially argued that the Dutch criminal court had no jurisdiction to hear the case, they are unlikely to seek a change of venue to Iraq now. He faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison in the Netherlands if convicted of complicity in genocide.

Van Anraat operated from Switzerland and Italy in the 1980s, and was indicted by U.S. authorities for export violations in 1989. Italian authorities detained him, but a U.S. extradition request was denied by a judge who found the charges were politically motivated and ordered him released.

Van Anraat fled to Iraq before that decision was reversed on appeal and lived under Saddam's protection until the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

The al-Anfal case has provided more details about Van Anraat's career, including a memo sent by special security forces to Saddam's presidential office. It showed Van Anraat was granted an Iraqi passport and the Arabic name "Faris Mansour" after marrying a Palestinian Muslim resident of Iraq.

The April 20, 1992 document states that the passport was a reward for his "valuable services," including providing "our institutions and the military industry with chemical and other rare materials."

Van Anraat was detained after Saddam's fall and interrogated by the CIA, but eventually was allowed to return to the Netherlands, since the statute of limitations on his U.S. export violations had expired.

But the Dutch government decided to prosecute him on the basis of the "Universal Jurisdiction" principle, which says all nations have a duty to prosecute war crimes that might otherwise go unpunished.

AP

About Frans van Anraat

Frans Cornelis Adrianus van Anraat (born August 9, 1942 in Den Helder) is a Dutch businessman who sold raw materials for the production of chemical weapons to Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

During the 1970's Van Anraat worked at engineering companies in Italy, Switzerland and Singapore that were building chemical plants in Iraq. Having learned about the trade in chemicals, he founded his own company, "FCA Contractor", based in Bissone, Switzerland. From 1984 he supplied thousands of tons of chemicals to Iraq.

Among these chemicals were the essential raw materials for producing mustard gas and nerve gas. Both gases were used during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980-1988 as well as during an attack the military carried out on Iraqi Kurds in 1988, in which some 5,000 people were killed. This attack was part of the Al-Anfal campaign of the Iraqi regime against Kurds in the north of the country.

After his arrest and release in Italy in 1989, Van Anraat fled to Iraq, where he lived for the next 14 years. When Saddam's regime fell in 2003, Van Anraat returned to the Netherlands. He was arrested on December 6, 2004 for complicity to war crimes and genocide. On December 23, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for complicity to war crimes, but the court argued the charges of complicity to genocide could not be substantiated.

The public prosecutor appealed the verdict. This case is also notable, because it established that the chemical bombings in North Iraq constituted genocide according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Soon after his arrest, Dutch newspapers reported that Van Anraat had been an informer of the Dutch secret service AIVD.

Van Anraat is the only Dutchman ever to appear on the FBI's most wanted list. 

Top