25 April 2013
Judgment in case concerning Iranian and Iraqi survivors of mustard gas attack
On 24 April 2013, the District Court of the Hague in the Netherlands ordered Frans van Anraat, a Dutch national and former businessman convicted of selling raw materials for mustard gas to Saddam Hussein, to pay compensation to 17 victims of chemical weapon attacks by the regime of Saddam Hussein in 1988.
The case was brought by survivors of attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja in Iraq in 1988, in which an estimated 5,600 civilians were killed.
The judgment raises interesting questions from a shared responsibility perspective, as Van Anraat was only one of many contributors to the eventual injuries (see blog post written by André Nollkaemper here).
Source: Judgment Rechtbank 's-Gravenhage | LJN: BZ8333 | C/09/355125 / HA ZA 09-4324 (in Dutch)
Source: The Washington Post | Dutch court awards compensation to Iraqi, Iranian mustard gas attack survivors