Dutch court orders businessman to pay victims of Iraq chemical weapons attack
A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered a businessman convicted of selling Saddam Hussein raw materials for mustard gas to pay compensation to victims of chemical weapon attacks by the late Iraqi dictator’s regime.
The landmark ruling was largely symbolic for the 16 survivors as the businessman, Hans van Anraat, is serving a prison sentence for selling the chemicals and is believed to be destitute. But it served as a warning to individuals or businesses who may still try to sell chemicals to tyrants at a time of reports that poison gas is being used in Syria’s bloody civil war.
Kadir was just 4 years old when he survived Saddam’s notorious 1988 attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja in Iraq in which an estimated 5,600 civilians were killed. His parents, brother and sister died and he was left with badly damaged lungs that make even day-to-day activities like climbing a flight of stairs tough.
Kadir now lives in the Netherlands, where Van Anraat is serving a 16 ½-year sentence for supplying Saddam with a chemical known as TDG, in the full knowledge that it was going to be used to make poison gas.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/dutch-court-compensation-for-gas-attack-survivors/
The businessman may already be in jail but it is a good message to send to other businesses that may want to make money selling the ingredients to make chemical weapons. Of course, it is only one court in one country, but it is a start.
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