Text 49227, 88 rader
Skriven 2007-04-06 11:13:08 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
     Kommentar till en text av Michiel van der Vlist
Ärende: Sure there is!
======================
Here's proof that there really are complicity laws in Holland/EU. Not only
that, but there actually were WMDs in Iraq, provided by a Dutchman no
less.

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Dutch Man Appeals War Crimes Conviction
By TOBY STERLING
Associated Press Writer

April 2, 2007, 6:59 PM EDT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A Dutch businessman appealing his war crimes
conviction denied Monday that he knew chemicals he sold to Saddam
Hussein's regime would be used to make poison gas.

Frans van Anraat, 64, is petitioning to overturn a 15-year prison sentence
handed down in December 2005 for selling tons of chemicals made into
mustard and nerve gas that was unleashed on Kurdish villages in northern
Iraq in 1987-88 and against Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

While Van Anraat appealed his conviction of complicity in war crimes,

(Complicity law prof ----------------------^----------^)

prosecutors appealed his acquittal of complicity in genocide, which
carries a maximum 30-year sentence.

The case was unusual because it involved a Western businessman and was
tried in a European national court for war crimes in Iraq.

Under questioning by three appeals judges, Van Anraat said he had not
known the purpose of the chemicals he shipped to Iraq. He dismissed as
"nonsense" testimony by his former Japanese business partner that Van
Anraat knew how the chemicals would be used.

(sounds familiar doesn't it, ala Vlist)

When judges pointed out a telegram describing the chemical with "mustard
gas" in parenthesis, Van Anraat said he hadn't read it.

He said his customer was the Iraq Oil Ministry, but said he didn't deliver
the chemicals he purchased from a U.S. company directly to the ministry.
Instead, he left them "in transit" at the port of Trieste, Italy, without
knowing their ultimate destination.

"I didn't supply the Iraqi government, that's just nonsense," he said.

His defense lawyers are expected to argue that Van Anraat has been singled
out unfairly for prosecution among many businesses and governments that
helped Saddam make and use chemical weapons.

The defense had sought to take depositions from Saddam and his cousin Ali
Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali."

Saddam was hanged Dec. 30 by Iraqi authorities in an unrelated case.
Al-Majid is on trial in Baghdad, where prosecutors on Monday called for
the death penalty for him and four co-defendants for their role in
Operation Anfal, in which more than 100,000 Kurds were killed.

At Van Anraat's trial, judges at the Hague District Court found he had
used a network of shell companies to hide the chemical sales because he
knew that they were illegal and that the chemicals would be used for
killing.

They acquitted him of complicity in genocide, however, finding he did not
know specifically that the chemicals would be used against Kurds.

Judges gave him the maximum sentence, saying he was driven by greed and
showed no remorse.

(ala Menno Blom)

Prosecutors are expected to argue Van Anraat was complicit in genocide
since he continued seeking to sell chemicals to Iraq even after hearing of
the gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja on March 16, 1988, in which
about 5,000 were killed using chemicals he supplied.

-+-

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but
that they know so much that isn't so. - Ronald Reagan


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