G
gilliam
Guest
Remember the other day when we were talking about who gave Saddam the gas to kill the Kurds?
Well it ends up being a Dutch business man and he is being freed today.
An appeal judge in The Hague has ordered the release of a Dutch businessman accused of supplying the chemicals to Saddam Hussein that enabled him to gas the Kurds.
The ruling is a setback for Dutch prosecutors seeking to bring their first case of involvement in genocide.
Frans van Anraat was arrested six weeks ago on suspicion of complicity in genocide. He is accused of supplying the chemicals that enabled the Iraqi dictator to make the mustard gas with which he killed and maimed thousands of Kurds in attacksin 1988. About 5,000 were killed in the town of Halabja alone.
Mr Van Anraat, 62, has never denied supplying the chemicals, but says he did not know what they were to be used for.
Officials and lawyers involved in the case say that the judge’s decision reflects judicial reluctance to pursue such cases.
After a year-long investigation, the Dutch authorities arrested Mr Van Anraat early last month at his canal-side house in west Amsterdam.
US customs had Mr Van Anraat on their most wanted list for several years, and had issued an international arrest warrant for him alleging that he provided Saddam with 538 tonnes of a chemical solvent called thiodiglycol, or TDG, which is used in the textile industry and is also the main ingredient in the manufacture of mustard gas. The Dutch say they have information indicating that Mr Van Anraat supplied more chemicals than the Americans suspect. Much of the Dutch information comes from UN weapons inspectors who investigated Saddam’s chemical arsenal after the first Gulf war in 1991, and who questioned Mr Van Anraat at least three times in Baghdad in the mid-1990s. The inspectors believe that he was a key international middleman in Saddam’s chemical weapons programme.
guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1401248,00.html
Well it ends up being a Dutch business man and he is being freed today.
An appeal judge in The Hague has ordered the release of a Dutch businessman accused of supplying the chemicals to Saddam Hussein that enabled him to gas the Kurds.
The ruling is a setback for Dutch prosecutors seeking to bring their first case of involvement in genocide.
Frans van Anraat was arrested six weeks ago on suspicion of complicity in genocide. He is accused of supplying the chemicals that enabled the Iraqi dictator to make the mustard gas with which he killed and maimed thousands of Kurds in attacksin 1988. About 5,000 were killed in the town of Halabja alone.
Mr Van Anraat, 62, has never denied supplying the chemicals, but says he did not know what they were to be used for.
Officials and lawyers involved in the case say that the judge’s decision reflects judicial reluctance to pursue such cases.
After a year-long investigation, the Dutch authorities arrested Mr Van Anraat early last month at his canal-side house in west Amsterdam.
US customs had Mr Van Anraat on their most wanted list for several years, and had issued an international arrest warrant for him alleging that he provided Saddam with 538 tonnes of a chemical solvent called thiodiglycol, or TDG, which is used in the textile industry and is also the main ingredient in the manufacture of mustard gas. The Dutch say they have information indicating that Mr Van Anraat supplied more chemicals than the Americans suspect. Much of the Dutch information comes from UN weapons inspectors who investigated Saddam’s chemical arsenal after the first Gulf war in 1991, and who questioned Mr Van Anraat at least three times in Baghdad in the mid-1990s. The inspectors believe that he was a key international middleman in Saddam’s chemical weapons programme.
guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1401248,00.html
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