Frans van Anraat

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Frans Cornelis Adrianus van Anraat (born August 9, 1942 in Den Helder) is a Dutch businessman who sold raw materials for the production of chemical weapons to Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

During the 1970's Van Anraat worked at engineering companies in Italy, Switzerland and Singapore that were building chemical plants in Iraq. Having learned about the trade in chemicals, he founded his own company, "FCA Contractor", based in Bissone, Switzerland. From 1984 he supplied thousands of tons of chemicals to Iraq. Among these chemicals were the essential raw materials for producing mustard gas and nerve gas. Both gases were used during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980-1988 as well as during an attack the military carried out on Iraqi Kurds in 1988, in which some 5,000 people were killed. This attack was part of the Al-Anfal campaign of the Iraqi regime against Kurds in the north of the country.

After his arrest and release in Italy in 1989, Van Anraat fled to Iraq, where he lived for the next 14 years. When Saddam's regime fell in 2003, Van Anraat returned to the Netherlands. He was arrested on December 6, 2004 for complicity to war crimes and genocide. On December 23, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for complicity to war crimes, but the court argued the charges of complicity to genocide could not be substantiated. The public prosecutor appealed the verdict. This case is also notable, because it established that the chemical bombings in North Iraq constituted genocide according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Soon after his arrest, Dutch newspapers reported that Van Anraat had been an informer of the Dutch secret service AIVD.

Van Anraat is the only Dutchman ever to appear on the FBI's most wanted list.

The appeal court will start reconsideration process in April 2007 in the Hague.