Today, Liesbeth Zegveld and Anne Scheltema Beduin, lawyers for the victims of the mustard gas attacks in Iraq and Iran in 1987 and 1988, provided the district court of The Hague with further comments on the claim for damages filed by the victims of the Dutch businessman Frans Van Anraat. They are provisionally demanding payment of Euro 25,000.- per victim.
In the 1980’s, Van Anraat sold large quantities of the raw material Thiodiglycol (TDG) to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime. This TDG was subsequently converted into mustard gas for bombs that were used against the Kurdish civilian population in Iraq and Iran. In 2009, Van Anraat was sentenced to 16.5 years imprisonment for, among other counts, war crimes.