Dutchman accused of supplying Saddam with lethal chemicals

A Dutchman accused of supplying fallen Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with chemicals used in attacks on several Kurdish villages in the 1980s was to go on trial today on changes of complicity in genocide.

Frans van Anraat, 63, allegedly shipped hundreds of tonnes of chemical components for mustard and nerve gas.

He has acknowledged selling chemicals to Saddam’s regime, but said his actions were legitimate business deals.

His indictment covers attacks in the villages of Halabja, Goptata, Birjinni and Zewa which Dutch prosecutors in The Hague say were intended to wipe out the ethnic Kurdish population in whole or in part and constituted genocide.

The alleged crimes fall under an international convention banning genocide.

Saddam will also be tried for the notorious atrocities that killed some 180,000 Kurds and the poison gas attack on Halabja that killed 5,000.

Survivors of those attacks will be among witnesses to testify in coming weeks.