March 18, 2005 - 2:15 AM

Saddam nerve gas case set to open in Dutch court

By Paul Gallagher

ROTTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch court opens hearings today against a man accused of helping former
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein commit war crimes and genocide by providing him with materials for
chemical weapons.

Frans van Anraat, 62, is charged with supplying thousands of tonnes of raw materials for chemical
weapons used in the 1980-1988 war against Iran and against Iraqi Kurds, including a 1988 attack on the
town of Halabja, in which an estimated 5,000 people were killed.

Prosecutors say the United Nations has described Van Anraat, who is also charged with complicity
in war crimes and genocide, as "one of the most important middlemen in Iraq's acquisition of chemical
material".

Prosecutors and the defence are expected to discuss preparations for trial at Friday's hearing at
a high-security court in the port city of Rotterdam.

"The images of the gas attack on the Kurdish city Halabja were a shock. But I did not give the
order to do that. How many products, such as bullets do we make in the Netherlands?" Van Anraat said
in a 2003 interview with Dutch magazine Revu.

Van Anratt was arrested by Dutch officials at his Amsterdam home in December.

He was also detained in Milan in January 1989 following a U.S. request but was released after two
months. He then went to Iraq where it is thought he stayed until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, when he
returned to the Netherlands through Syria.