The know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained by Saddam's regime from foreign sources.[24] The largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and West Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics, sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Singapore -based firm Kim Al-Khaleej, affiliated to the United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.[25] Dieter Backfisch, managing director of West German company Karl Kolb GmbH, was quoted by saying in 1989: "For people in Germany poison gas is something quite terrible, but this does not worry customers abroad."[24]
On December 23, 2005, a Dutch court sentenced Frans van Anraat, a businessman who bought chemicals on the world market and sold them to Saddam's regime, to 15 years in prison. The court ruled that Saddam committed genocide against the people of Halabja;[26] this was the first time the Halabja attack was described as an act of genocide in a court ruling. In March 2008, the government of Iraq announced plans to take legal action against the suppliers of chemicals used in the poison gas attack.
