(24 Apr 2013)
The Hague, 24 April 2013
++16:9++
1. Mid of judges entering courtroom
2. SOUNDBITE (Dutch) Judge Hans Hofhuis:
"The ruling is that all 16 claims that have been accepted are confirmed and that is 25,000 euros (32,475 US dollars) for each person and Mr. (Hans) Van Anraat is ordered to pay that sum to each of them."
3. Mid of Rebas Kadir, survivor of 1988 Halabja attack, speaking to reporter
4. SOUNDBITE (Dutch) Rebas Kadir, survivor of 1988 Halabja attack:
"I am of course very happy that the judgement is finally in our favour. For us it was very important that it sent a message that something like this should not and cannot happen."
5. Mid of Kadir outside courtroom
6. SOUNDBITE (Dutch) Rebas Kadir, survivor of 1988 Halabja attack:
"It is not really closure, but it feels like a new beginning."
7. Mid of lawyer for the victims, Liesbeth Zegveld speaking outside court
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Liesbeth Zegveld, lawyer for the victims:
"The victims were waiting for justice and finally the court has given them justice."
FILE: Halabja, Iraq - March, 1988
++4:3++
9. Various aerials of ruins of buildings in the Kurdish Iraqi villages of Halabja
10. Various of street with bodies of people killed in chemical attack (++includes bodies of children++)
STORYLINE:
A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered a businessman convicted of selling Saddam Hussein raw materials for mustard gas to pay compensation to victims of chemical weapon attacks by the late Iraqi dictator's regime.
The landmark ruling was largely symbolic for the 16 survivors involved as the businessman, Hans van Anraat, is serving a prison sentence for selling the chemicals and is believed to be destitute.
But it served as a warning to individuals or businesses who may still try to sell chemicals to tyrants at a time of reports that poison gas is being used in Syria's bloody civil war.
"I am of course very happy that the judgement is finally in our favour," said Rebas Kadir, the only victim in court for the judgment.
"For us it was very important that it sent a message that something like this should not and cannot happen."
Kadir was just four years old when he survived Saddam's notorious 1988 attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja in northern Iraq in which an estimated 5,600 civilians were killed.
His parents, brother and sister died and he was left with badly damaged lungs that make even day-to-day activities like climbing a flight of stairs tough.
Saddam, then Iraq's dictator, ordered the Halabja attack as part of a scorched-earth campaign to crush a Kurdish rebellion in the north, which was seen as aiding Iran in the final months of its war with Iraq.
Kadir now lives in the Netherlands, where Van Anraat is serving a 16 and a half year sentence for supplying Saddam with a chemical known as TDG in the full knowledge that it was going to be used to make poison gas.
Liesbeth Zegveld, the lawyer for the victims, said they had finally received justice.
Van Anraat, who was not in court, was ordered to pay each survivor 25,000 euros (32,475 US dollars).
His lawyer said on Wednesday that Van Anraat believed the chemical was to be used in the Iraqi textile industry.
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