IRAQ: A Dutch businessman accused of selling Saddam Hussein ingredients for chemical weapons used against Iraqi Kurds appeared in court yesterday to face charges of complicity in war crimes and genocide.
Dutch prosecutors say Frans van Anraat (62) supplied thousands of tonnes of agents for poison gas that the former Iraqi government used in the 1980-1988 Iran war and against its own Kurdish civilians, including the 1988 attack on the town of Halabja.
Prosecutor Fred Teeven told a pre-trial hearing at the high-security court in Rotterdam that the defendant continued to supply chemical agents even after news of the Halabja attack which killed an estimated 5,000 people 17 years ago this week.
"The damage and grief caused will not be rapidly, if ever, forgotten," Mr Teeven said.
"The fact that victims from 17 years ago are present here today and that this case has aroused emotions, especially within the Kurdish community, is a fact that will have escaped nobody."
Saddam and his feared cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", face trial for war crimes, including the Halabja attack, at a special tribunal in Iraq.
UN weapons inspectors have called Mr van Anraat one of the most important middle men who supplied Iraq with chemical agents.
The first Dutchman to be tried on genocide- and war crimes-related charges, he faces up to life in prison if convicted. The trial proper is likely to begin later this year.
Defence lawyers said the prosecution of their client was wrong as other Dutch businesses, which also supplied chemical materials at the time, have not faced charges.
Mr van Anraat, who sat silently in court, received assurances from Dutch authorities that he would not face prosecution before an investigation was launched in 2003, the defence said.
Iranian and Iraqi victims of chemical attacks plan to seek up to €10,000 compensation each from the accused, a lawyer for the group said, while a group of Kurds demonstrated outside the court, holding pictures of Halabja victims. "It was a black page in Kurdish history," said Sherzad Rozbayani, a member of a Kurdish students' union.
Iraqi forces attacked Halabja after it was captured by Iranian troops in what Baghdad saw as betrayal by local Kurds.
The attack gained international notoriety after Iran invited foreign journalists to see the town, still strewn with bodies.
Mr van Anraat was first detained in Milan in 1989 following a US request but was released after two months. He then fled to Iraq, where it is thought he stayed until the 2003 US-led invasion, when he returned to the Netherlands.