A DUTCH businessman went on trial on genocide charges in The Hague yesterday, facing accusations that he sold chemicals to Iraq in the knowledge that the Saddam Hussein regime would use them to murder thousands of people.

Frans van Anraat, 63, is charged with complicity in war crimes and genocide for supplying agents for poison gas that were used by Iraq in the 1980-1988 war with Iran and against its own Kurdish population. In the deadliest attack, against the town of Halabja, in 1988, more than 5,000 people were killed by chemicals in one day.

Mr van Anraat appeared unmoved in the dock as Fred Teveen, the prosecutor, told the Dutch court: “He is accused of delivering raw materials necessary to build Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons. The use of those weapons by the regime in Baghdad led to the death of thousands in Iraq and Iran. He is complicit in serious international crimes.”

UN weapons inspectors have alleged that Mr van Anraat was an important middleman who supplied Iraq with chemical agents. He fled to Iraq in 1989 after being arrested in Italy. He was detained by US forces after the 2003 invasion, released and arrested by Dutch police on his return to the Netherlands.

Mr van Anraat, who, if convicted, faces the possibility of life imprisonment, said in a statement read out to the court that he did not know that Iraq intended to use the materials that he supplied for weapons. Jan Peter van Schaik, his lawyer, said: “The prosecution will have to prove that the raw materials were used in weapons and that these weapons were used in the village to come to a conviction.”

He said that there was no convincing evidence linking Mr van Anraat’s material to the weapons of Iraq. The trial is expected to end on December 21.

Sixteen Halabja victims have launched a separate lawsuit against Mr van Anraat. They seek up to £6,500 each in compensation from the accused.

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