Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat has been denied leave to appeal against his sentence on chemical weapons charges by the European court of human rights.

Van Anraat is currently serving a 16.5 year jail term in the Netherlands. He was first found guilty of war crimes in 2005 for supplying large quantities of chemicals to Saddam Hussein’s regime which were then used to make mustard gas.
Van Anraat had argued he should not have been tried because Saddam enjoyed diplomatic immunity at the time. This meant he could not be prosecuted as an accessory, Van Anraat said.

For the court ruling, click here