In the first trial involving the mass killing of Iraqi Kurds with chemical weapons, a Dutch court on Friday sentenced a supplier of the weapon ingredients to 15 years in jail.
The judges convicted Frans van Anraat, 63, a Dutch businessman, of complicity in war crimes because they said he had known that the materials he sold to Iraq during the rule of former president Saddam Hussein could be used to make lethal poison gas.
The court acquitted him of complicity in genocide, because it said it could not be proved that he knew that the chemicals would be used for genocide. The raw materials were sent to Iraq before they were used in the mass attack against Kurdish villagers, the court said.
PHOTO: EPA
Van Anraat received the maximum sentence for complicity in war crimes. But the judges' decision said that "the crimes are of such a grave nature that even the maximum sentence cannot do them justice."
A group of Kurds, some of whom had joined the lawsuit as relatives of victims, applauded in court when the sentence was handed down, and several dozen others played music and danced outside the courthouse in The Hague afterward, witnesses said.
Lawyers involved in the monthlong trial said it was the first time a court had ruled that the attack by Saddam's troops on the town of Halabja in 1988 was genocide. The attack, which was part of a broader campaign against Iraqi Kurds, killed more than 5,000 people in a single day, while blinding and maiming many others.
The massacre also forms part of the charges brought against Saddam, who is now on trial in Baghdad in connection with a different large-scale killing.
Van Anraat's case is also the first in which a supplier of potentially harmful ingredients had been charged with genocide and convicted in connection with war crimes under a new mix of national and international law. In the past, the delivery of goods like the chemicals that van Anraat sold to Iraq despite export bans would probably have been dealt with as an economic crime, said Heikelina Verrijn-Stuart, a Dutch specialist in international law.
"This sends an important signal to suppliers and traders," she said.
"It says that they, too, can be prosecuted and held accountable for war crimes," she added.
The indictment of van Anraat said he had used a Panamanian company based in Switzerland to try to cover up his dealings with Iraq.
The indictment said the chemicals could be used as ingredients in mustard and nerve gases, which eventually were used against the Kurdish population in Iraq and during Iraq's war against Iran in the 1980s.
Prosecutors said van Anraat, acting as a middleman, had used schemes to ship the chemicals from Japanese producers via countries including Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Singapore. He sent them under labels like "flame retardants."
During the trial, he admitted to selling the goods, but maintained that he thought they would be used in the textile industry. Several witnesses, including a Japanese business associate of van Anraat, testified that he knew of the materials' potentially lethal use.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS