The Supreme Court of the Netherlands on Thuesday has upheld the guilty verdict against the Dutch businessman involved in selling chemical products to Iraq designated to produce mustard gas.

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands has confirmed the conviction of Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat for complicity in war crimes. His sentence, however, has been slightly reduced, because the appeal at the Court took so long. Instead of 17 years, Mr Van Anraat will have to serve 16.5 years.

In the 1980s, Frans van Anraat sold components of mustard gas to Saddam Hussein's regime. The Iraqi dictator later used mustard gas against the Kurdish population in Northern Iraq. The gas was also used in the Iraq war with Iran.
 

The Dutch highest court declared that “The suspect knew [...] the chemicals he was delivering were being used for mustard gas”, and “knew that the poison gas would be used in the (Iran-Iraq) war”.

However, the Court rejected the claims for damages brought by 16 victims as being too complicated, especially where Iraqi or Iranian law would be applicable.

On 23 December 2005, the District Court of The Hague found Van Anraat guilty of complicity in violations of the laws and customs of war, but acquitted him of complicity to genocide. He was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. On 9 May 2007, the Court of Appeals of The Hague confirmed the finding of guilt and increased the sentence by two years.

The court said Frans van Anraat was the only supplier of a gas called TDG. As such, Van Anraat’s involvement in supplying chemicals to Iraq was an essential contribution to the chemical weapons programme of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

With the chemicals supplied by Van Anraat, the regime was capable of carrying out a large number of attacks with mustard gas on the civilian population, both in Iran and Iraq.

The District Court found that the chemical attacks in Kurdistan during the1980s, notably on the city of Halabja in March 1988, were committed with the intent to destroy the Kurdish people in Iraq and that this action therefore amounted to genocide by the regime.

The Supreme Court did not rule on the question of whether or not Saddam Hussein’s regime committed genocide, although the Court of Appeals had found that there were strong indications that the leaders of the Iraqi regime had genocidal intent.