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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doug R who wrote (265822)	12/23/2005 11:25:04 AM
From: paret	Respond to of 1573646

It must be wonderful to be a Democrat, and never have to explain your inconsistencies...

To: Doug R who wrote (265822)	12/23/2005 11:28:18 AM
From: paret	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573646

15 years for chemicals-to-Iraq man Dutchman who aided Hussein regime convicted of war crimes Friday, December 23, 2005 THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- A court convicted a Dutch chemicals merchant of war crimes Friday, sentencing him to 15 years in prison for selling Saddam Hussein's regime the materials used in lethal gas attacks on Kurdish villages in the 1980s. Frans Van Anraat, 63, was not in the courtroom as the judges issued the verdict 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 reverberate in later charges against Saddam by an Iraqi court in Baghdad -- and that the chemicals supplied by the businessman were essential to the making of the weapons. "It therefore follows that the mustard gas that ended up on the battlefield has been produced with TDG supplied by the suspect," the ruling said. The genocide ruling came earlier as part of the unfolding verdict in the case of van Anraat, who is accused of complicity in genocide for providing materials to Saddam Hussein's regime used in the production of lethal gas used against Kurdish villages. "The court thinks and considers legally and convincingly proven that the Kurdish population meets requirement under Genocide Conventions as an ethnic group," the ruling said. "The court has no other conclusion than that these attacks were committed with the intent to destroy the Kurdish population of Iraq." Dozens of ethnic Kurds gathered at the courtroom to hear the verdict, being handed down by a national war crimes court. It was the first court case to deal with the attacks against the Kurds, and the determination of genocide was an essential first step for the court in reaching its conclusion. Prosecutors demanded a 15-year sentence for the chemicals merchant, saying he shared responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Iraq's minority Kurds in what they called Hussein's campaign of genocide during the Iran-Iraq war. Simultaneous English and Arabic translations were available to the spectators in the public gallery. At the outset of the lengthy verdict, the judges dismissed defense arguments that it had no jurisdiction in the case. Prosecutors say Van Anraat, 63, shipped at least 1,100 tons of chemicals to Iraq that were used to manufacture lethal chemical weapons. 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. The outcome of the trial was not expected to have a direct consequence on charges being prepared by a special Iraqi tribunal against Hussein. He currently is on trial in Baghdad for allegedly ordering the killing of more than 140 people in the Shiite town of Dujail in 1982. Van Anraat's 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 has expired, and the events occurred so long ago that witness statements were neither accurate nor reliable. But prosecutors said Van Anraat's attempts to conceal the shipments of chemicals indicated that he knew they were illegal and dangerous.