Dutch national accused of helping Saddam obtain mustard gas precursor
From Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Dutch national who allegedly helped Saddam Hussein
obtain a chemical to manufacture mustard gas has been arrested by authorities
in the Netherlands, according to a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
Franz van Anraat is accused of being essentially "a procurement agent"
for the Iraqi government, arranging shipments of large quantities of
thiodiglycol, a precursor of mustard gas, from a Baltimore company, Alcolac
International, according to ICE spokesman Dean Boyd.
Boyd said a U.S. Customs investigation in the 1980s documented four
thiodiglycol shipments to Iran between October 1987 and February 1988. Each
involved more than 250,000 pounds of the chemical.
A U.S. administration source said Dutch authorities were able to match
serial numbers from those shipments to 55-gallon drums seen in U.N. videotape
shot at an Iraqi chemical weapons plant in Samarah.
Van Anraat was arrested in January 1989 in Milan, Italy, but a U.S.
extradition request was rejected and he was released. According to press
reports, he found refuge in Iraq.
According to the ICE spokesman, Dutch authorities contacted the
Department of Justice in January of this year indicating that they were
pursuing an investigation against Van Anraat, and the U.S. turned over all the
evidence in the case.
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December 07, 2004
Dutch man arrested over Saddam nerve gas deals
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
Times Online http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1392610,00.html
A Dutch Businessman accused of supplying Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons that were used to kill thousands of Kurdish civilians is due to be charged with war crimes this week more than a decade after he fled to Iraq.
Frans van Anraat, who lived in Baghdad as a fugitive for 13 years, was seized by Dutch police yesterday and is due to appear in court in Arnhem where he faces charges of complicity to commit genocide and breaking the laws of war.
"The man is suspected of delivering thousands of tons of raw materials for chemical weapons to the former regime in Baghdad between 1984 and 1988," Dutch prosecutors said in a statement.
"The chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government in the war against Iran and against the Kurdish population in northern Iraq."
Investigators believe that Mr van Anraat, 62, was one of the key middlemen who supplied tonnes of banned chemicals to Iraq between 1984 and 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war.
The Iraqis built and used chemical weapons repeatedly against Iranian troops and their own Kurdish population. In the most infamous incident, 5,000 Kurdish civilians were killed in a sustained poison gas attack on the town of Halabja in March 1988.
In 1989 Mr van Anraat was arrested by Italian police at his home in Milan on a warrant from US Customs. They accused him of shipping 528 tons of thiodiglycol, a chemical commonly used in the textile industry, from a company in Maryland to Iraq.
When combined with hydrochloric acid, thiodiglycol produces mustard gas, a chemical agent first used in First World War which causes severe blistering, attacks the eyes and lungs and often kills or blinds its victims.
The United Nations believes that Mr van Anraat was one of the main foreign suppliers to Iraq, making 36 shipments of potentially lethal chemicals to Iraq from companies in the West.
Mr van Anraat was released from custody in Italy and then fled to Iraq where he lived as a fugitive in a villa in Baghdad. He reportedly was given a job working for the Ministry of Military Industrialisation and was occasionally sighted around the city driving a white Oldsmobile and in the company of his Moroccan girlfriend.
In a Dutch television interview two years ago, he confessed that he had shipped materials to Iraq, but insisted that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. "This was not my main business, this is something I did in passing," he told the Netwerk television programme.
"Somewhere once back then, I got the request whether I could deliver certain products to them, which they needed. And because I had a very good relationship with the (Iraqi) Oil Ministry, and that's where the request came from, I tried to see if I could do it. And that was successful and we did deliver some materials."
After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mr van Anraat is believed to have escaped from the country via Syria and slipped back into the Netherlands, where he remained until his arrest in Amsterdam. Police said that when he was seized his bags were packed and he appeared to be preparing to leave the country.
Although the suspect does not seem to have broken any Dutch export laws, prosecutors intend to prove that he knew that the chemicals he was shipping would be turned into poison gas by the Iraqis and used against Saddam's enemies.
"From different sources it can be deduced that the suspect was aware of the destination and the final purpose for the base materials supplied by him. One of the most infamous attacks with chemical weapons is the destruction of the Kurdish town of Halabja on March 16, 1988. During this attack an estimated 5,000 people were killed," the prosecutor's office said.
His trial could coincide with the first hearings in Baghdad of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, which is due to begin proceedings against leading figures in the former regime including Saddam Hussein, who faces seven charges of crimes against humanity.
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Wed 8 Dec 2004
Dutchman suspected of aiding Saddam in war crimes is arrested
Scotsman.com
WENDEL BROERE
IN AMSTERDAM
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 1984 and 1988."
The chemicals could be used to produce mustard and nerve gasses. Iraq used the weapons in the 1980-1988 war against Iran and against the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, including in the notorious attack on the town of Halabja in 1988, in which an estimated 5,000 people were killed, prosecutors said.
The man is suspected of complicity in war crimes and genocide. He will be brought before a judge later this week.
UN officials confirmed that the UN inspection agency for Iraq, UNMOVIC, and its predecessor agency, UNSCOM, had collected a detailed dossier on Mr van Anraat showing him to be an important middleman in supplying Iraq with chemical materials. However, they said these files had been kept confidential and they could not now discuss their content for fear of undermining the case against him.
The prosecutor, Digna van Boedzelaer, said the man could face a maximum of life imprisonment for complicity in genocide. "We are talking about 36 shipments which amounted to tonnes and tonnes of chemicals to make mustard gas and nerve gas," she said, adding the chemicals were sent from the United States to Belgium and shipped onto Iraq via Jordan.