WP: Baltimore Firm Part of Probe Of (Saddam's) Poison Gas

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/08/AR2005110801703.html

Baltimore Firm Part of Probe Of Poison Gas
Dutch Authorities Tracking Chemicals Used by Iraq

By Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 9, 2005; B01

An investigation of poison gas attacks carried out by Saddam Hussein's regime two decades ago has led Dutch authorities to Maryland, where for more than 18 months they have been quietly gathering evidence about an international businessman's dealings with a now-defunct chemical manufacturer. Their target is Frans Van Anraat, a Dutch citizen scheduled to stand trial in the Netherlands within weeks on charges of genocide and war crimes. Van Anraat, 63, is accused of supplying the Iraqi regime with thiodiglycol, a key ingredient in the mustard gas used to poison thousands of Iranians and ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq.

Van Anraat's thiodiglycol was manufactured in Baltimore by the chemical company Alcolac Inc., which, U.S. authorities say, effectively supplied both sides during the Iran-Iraq war. Alcolac pleaded guilty in 1989 to knowingly violating export laws in the case of a shipment of thiodiglycol that ultimately went to Iran. The recent work of Dutch investigators here suggests that the trial will highlight the Maryland company's role, knowingly or not, in helping Saddam build his arsenal. The company has since been sold and restructured.

"Alcolac turned a blind eye to abundant evidence in its files that this chemical was not going to the final destination that its customers stated in documents filed with customs," said Martin S. Himeles Jr., the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case against the company.

The prosecution of Van Anraat is a victory for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and federal prosecutors in Maryland, who indicted Van Anraat in 1989 only to watch him slip away from investigators in Europe. Italian authorities arrested Van Anraat in Milan in 1989, releasing him later after a judge found that the charge against him was a "political crime." Van Anraat then disappeared, reportedly slipping into Iraq and living as a guest of the regime for more than a decade.

more....

Frans Cornelis Adrianus van Anraat (born August 9, 1942 in Den Helder) is a Dutch businessman who is accused of selling 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 alledgedly supplied thousands of tons of chemicals to Iraq. Among these chemicals were the essential raw materials for producing mustard gas and nerve gas. Both gasses were used during an attack the military carried out on Iraqi Kurds in 1988, in which some 5,000 people were killed.

After his arrest and release in Italy in 1989, Van Anraat fled to Iraq, where he lived for the next 14 years. When Saddams regime fell in 2003, Van Anraat returned to the Netherlands. He was arrested on December 6, 2004 for complicity to war crimes and 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.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_van_Anraat"Text