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THE HAGUE, Netherlands: A Dutch appeals court is to begin hearing the case Monday of a businessman convicted of war crimes for selling chemicals to Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi dictator used in the mass killings of Kurds. Frans van Anraat, 64, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December 2005 for selling tons of precursor chemicals that were made into mustard gas and nerve gas unleashed on Kurdish villages in northern Iraq in 1987-88. Van Anraat said he didn't know the chemicals — some of which were purchased in the United States — could be used for anything...

THE HAGUE,(Reuters) - A Dutch businessman accused of selling chemicals to Iraq knowing Saddam Hussein would use them for poison gas attacks went on trial in the Netherlands on Monday on charges of complicity in war crimes and genocide. Frans van Anraat, 63, is charged with supplying thousands of tonnes of agents for poison gas used by Saddam's military in Iraq's 1980-1988 war against Iran and against its own Kurdish population, including an attack on the town of Halabja in 1988. Prosecutor Fred Teeven told a pre-trial hearing that Van Anraat continued to supply chemicals after the Halabja attack, which...

A businessman who has been dubbed the "Dutch Chemical Ali" is being held in jail in the Netherlands, accused of selling ingredients for lethal non-conventional weapons to ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Frans van Anraat faces the charge of genocide in a Dutch court for supplying chemical weapons to Saddam, who then used them in his war against Iran during the 1980s and in poison gas attacks on Iraqi Kurds. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Rotterdam said this was the first time a Dutch citizen was being prosecuted for genocide. "If he is convicted, the maximum sentence could...

<p>A Netherlands court has opened a pretrial hearing in the case of a Dutch businessman charged with complicity in genocide by selling chemical weapons ingredients to ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.</p> <p>Frans van Anraat appeared Friday in a Rotterdam courtroom. The 62-year-old defendant is accused of exporting tons of chemicals that Iraq used to make weapons over a four-year period beginning in 1984.</p>

Prosecutors in the Netherlands have formally charged a Dutch businessman with complicity in genocide for selling chemicals to Iraq's former regime. Frans van Anraat, 62, is accused of selling US and Japanese chemicals which were used to produce poison gas.

According to security services, a Dutch chemist is suspected to have been involved with the banned weapons program of Saddam Hussein. It is the 60 year old Frans van A. from Den Helder. This was reported by the newspaper 'De Telegraaf' on Saturday. Van A. is probebly hiding in Baghdad, heavily guarded by the Iraqi Republican Guards. He has been under surveillance by the Dutch security service AIVD for several years. According to the AIVD, it is an 'unique situation', because Van A. is one of the few foreigners that has intensive contacts to the regime of Saddam Hussein. Also...

A MAN suspected of helping former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein commit war crimes and genocide by supplying him with materials for chemical weapons, has been arrested by the Netherlands authorities. Prosecutors said the 62-year-old man, identified as Frans van Anraat by Dutch television, was arrested at his Amsterdam home on Monday as he prepared to leave the Netherlands. "According to the United Nations, the Dutchman is one of the most important middlemen in Iraq’s acquisition of chemical material," Dutch prosecutors said in a statement. "The man is suspected of supplying thousands of tonnes of raw materials for chemical weapons between...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) Prosecutors said on Tuesday they will charge a Dutch chemicals dealer as an accomplice to genocide for supplying Saddam Hussein with lethal chemicals used in the 1988 chemical attack on a Kurdish town that killed an estimated 5,000 civilians. Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor's office said the suspect, who was arrested in Amsterdam on Monday, will face charges ''for violating the laws of war and involvement in genocide.'' Prosecutors said Frans van Anraat, a 62-year-old chemicals dealer, had been a suspect since 1989, when he was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the...