Dutch Man Sentenced in Chemical Sale to Iraq

A Dutch businessman was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday after being convicted of complicity in war crimes for selling chemicals to Iraq that it used to carry out gas attacks.

Frans van Anraat was acquitted of genocide charges in the case.

The court said Van Anraat, 63, supplied the raw materials knowing Iraq would use them to make poison gas in its 1980-1988 war with Iran.

Poison gas was also used against Iraq’s Kurdish population, including an attack on the town of Halabja that killed thousands of people in 1988.

Van Anraat got the maximum sentence, but even that “is not enough to cover the seriousness of the acts,” presiding Judge Roel van Rossum said.

Defense lawyers said they would appeal.

Van Anraat, who was not in court, was acquitted of genocide charges because it could not be proved that he knew exactly how the chemicals would be used.

After the sentence was handed down, dozens of relatives of victims and their supporters danced in a circle to the sounds of flutes and beating drums outside the court.

More than 50, some in traditional dress, had followed the proceedings in English, Persian and Arabic through interpreters and some clapped their hands when the sentence was read.

In a magazine interview in 2003, Van Anraat admitted supplying the chemicals but denied knowing they were destined for Iraq and that they would be used to make poison gas.

Prosecutors said that Van Anraat delivered more than 1,000 tons of thiodiglycol -- an industrial chemical that can be used to make mustard gas but also has civilian uses -- to Iraq, and that more than 800 tons of it ended up on the battlefield.