A Dutch merchant was today imprisoned for 15 years for selling Saddam Hussein’s regime the materials used in the lethal gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in the 1980s.

Frans van Anraat, 63, was not in the courtroom when the judges found him guilty of war crimes, in the first court case anywhere concerning the killing of thousands of Iraqi Kurds with chemical weapons.

The court first determined that the slaughter of the Kurds constituted genocide - a finding that may impact on future charges brought against Saddam by an Iraqi court in Baghdad. It also ruled that the chemicals supplied by the businessman were essential to the making of the weapons.

But the court said that Van Anraat could not be held responsible for genocide, since his chemicals were delivered to Iraq before the mass killings began.

"All the deliveries took place before March 16, 1988; therefore, the defendant must be acquitted of complicity in genocide," it said, referring to the date of the attack on the village of Halabja where some 5,000 Kurds were killed. Dozens of ethnic Kurds gathered at the courtroom to hear the verdict.

"These attacks were committed with the intent to destroy the Kurdish population of Iraq," the ruling said. "The court finds the intent of destruction was targeted against part of the Kurdish group as part of a genocidal intent."

Presiding Judge R. van Rossum, reading the lengthy verdict, said that the maximum penalty was insufficient for this case, in which Van Anraat supplied a chemical weapons programme that "made possible a large number of attacks on defenceless civilians".

The ruling said that the weapons were part of "a political policy of systematic terror and illegal action against a certain population group".

Prosecutors said Van Anraat shipped at least 1,100 tons of chemicals to Iraq, using a roundabout route that was meant to conceal the destination.

Van Anraat has said he was unaware that the material would be used in chemical warfare, and that he was being unfairly targeted, while countless others have not been prosecuted for supplying arms and military intelligence to Iraq.

His lawyers did not contest the occurrence of "awful crimes." But they argued that, at worst, he had violated economic guidelines, not international humanitarian law. The time limit to prosecute those economic crimes had expired, they said, and the events occurred so long ago that witness statements were neither accurate nor reliable.

Citing international law, the judge said that Van Anraat was found guilty of multiple counts of war crimes, violating the laws and customs of war, and causing death and serious bodily harm to the whole or entire Kurdish population.

But ultimately, it said, it was Saddam who held the reins of power in Iraq at the time of the genocide, and he could be prosecuted under international law.

The outcome of the trial was not expected to have a direct consequence on charges being prepared by a special Iraqi tribunal against Saddam. He currently is on trial in Baghdad for allegedly ordering the killing of more than 140 people in the Shia town of Dujail in 1982.

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