Tehran sues European firms for aiding Saddam’s chemical attacks against Iranians: Judiciary

The head of the Iranian Judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights says Iran has filed lawsuits in international courts against European companies that provided chemical materials to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, who used chemical weapons against Iranians in the 1980s war.

Ali Baqeri-Kani made the remarks on Thursday in a meeting with families of the martyrs of the Sardasht chemical bombing during a visit to West Azarbaijan Province.

Baqeri-Kani said the Judiciary has filed lawsuits for more than 200 of the victims of Saddam’s chemical attacks, and final verdicts have been issued for 70 of the cases.

He lamented that the same countries which “brutally” butchered the Iranian people through their “chemical weapons” are now “arrogantly” violating the rights of the Iranian people through their “economic and political” tools, making a reference to their use of sanctions and international institutions against Iran.

“The governments that are exerting the highest amount of pressure and the most extensive sanctions against the Iranian people today are the ones that provided Saddam with chemical weapons, prevented international action against the Ba'athist regime and prevented media coverage of Saddam’s crime,” he stated.

He further said the same Western countries that suffocated civilians in Sardasht neighborhoods now claim to champion human rights in Geneva fortresses.

The official went on to invite Western rulers to hold their next so-called human rights meeting in Sardasht, so that they closely see the effects of their atrocities against the Iranian people.

“In the Sardasht crime, although Saddam played the role of the executioner in the most criminal way, the approach and action of some Western governments were certainly not less than the role of the executioner,” Baqeri-Kani said.

Those governments, he continued, consciously and deliberately produced and sold chemical weapons to Saddam, supported him in the international arena and suppressed media coverage of his crime in order to shift public opinion in their favor.

Sardasht, a small city in Iran’s West Azarbaijan Province, was targeted by Saddam’s Iraq on June 28, 1987, when Iraqi bombers attacked four densely populated parts of Sardasht with fatal chemical gasses.

Sardasht was the third city after Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki to become the target of weapons of mass destruction. At least 110 people were killed and 5,000 more were injured during the attack.

Iraq have launched over 350 large-scale gas attacks along the Iran-Iraq border between 1980 and 1988 on combatants and non-combatants, leaving behind over 107,000 victims.

As many as 2,600 of that total died at the time, and more than 45,000 others were left in permanent need of treatment.

Saddam possessed a huge arsenal of chemical weapons, which were reportedly produced using materials supplied by the US and other Western countries. Iranian officials have on numerous occasions urged the international community to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir