6 January 2006

AMSTERDAM — The Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) has lodged an appeal against the decision in December to acquit businessman Frans Van Anraat of complicity in genocide by Saddam Hussein.

The trial court jailed Van Anraat in December for 15 years for complicity in war crimes in relation to poison gas attacks carried out by Saddam's forces in Iraq and Iran.

The OM wants an appeal court to rule whether Van Anraat was an accomplice to genocide by providing some of the chemical compounds used to manufacture the gas. Van Anraat is also appealing against his conviction and sentence.

The trial court accepted evidence that  Van Anraat, 63, delivered a large amount of raw materials for chemical weapons to Saddam's regime. The dictator used the poison gas  from 1984 to 1988 in the war with Iran. Thousands of men, women and children were killed when the weapons were used on Kurdish villages in the north of Iraq in 1988.

The court cleared Van Anraat of the genocide charge because the prosecution failed to prove Van Anraat knew the chemicals would be used for that purpose.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2006]

Subject: Dutch news