|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Court Rejects Man’s Bid to End CW Supply Trial
A Dutch businessman yesterday failed to persuade a court in The Hague that he should not be put on trial for allegedly supplying chemicals that helped produce mustard gas used by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Iran (see GSN, Nov. 21). The lawyer for Frans van Anraat unsuccessfully argued that jurisdiction in the case belonged to Iraqi courts and that his client should be freed, the Associated Press reported (Anthony Deutsch, Associated Press/phillyBurbs.com, Nov. 21). Van Anraat could face life in prison if found to be complicit with war crimes and genocide, according to Agence France-Presse. Chemicals supplied by Van Anraat were used against Iraqi Kurds — 5,000 of whom were killed in 1988 in the town of Halabja — and during the Iran-Iraq War, according to Dutch prosecutors. “He is accused of delivering raw materials necessary to build Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons. The use of those weapons by the regime in Baghdad led to the deaths of thousands in Iraq and Iran,” said lead prosecutor Fred Teveen. “He is complicit in serious international crimes.” Van Anraat said in a statement to the court that he did not know his materials would be used in weapons. Defense attorney Jan Peter van Schaik said the prosecution lacks evidence that would bind van Anraat to the Iraqi chemical weapons. “The prosecution will have to prove that the raw materials were used in weapons and that these weapons were used in the village to come to a conviction,” van Schaik said. The trial should finish on Dec. 21, AFP reported (Charles Bremner, Agence France-Presse, Nov. 22).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
