Global Security Newswire

A Dutch national arrested in the Netherlands this month for allegedly selling chemical weapons precursors to deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been an informant for the Dutch AIVD intelligence service, De Volkskrant daily newspaper reported today, according to Reuters (see GSN, Dec. 7).

Prosecutors’ earlier attempts to arrest the man had failed because the Dutch Interior Ministry provided him with a “safe house” normally used for witness protection, De Volkskrant reported.

AIVD hoped the man would provide information about Hussein’s weapons program, according to De Volkskrant. AIVD officials declined to comment.

Krista van Velzen, a legislator and member of the opposition Socialist Party, said the interests of the intelligence service and the justice authorities appeared to conflict.

“The AIVD wants to protect him, the forces of law want to sue him,” she told De Volkskrant. “There was apparently a political decision to protect someone suspected of crimes as terrible as genocide. This is a threat to the rule of law” (Reuters, Dec. 20).