Final prisoner returns continue into May 2003

Iran received the remains of 570 soldiers and returned 1,166 Iraqi remains in a border exchange. Recovery did not mean every returned person had been identified.

A Tehran funeral honored 570 Iranians whose remains had been returned from Iraq. RFE/RL’s Persian service reported public debate over how the men had died.

Public hearings opened on Iran’s claim and the U.S. counterclaim, bringing wartime maritime disputes before the Court.

The hearings ended and the Court moved to deliberation on the claim and counterclaim.

ICRC archive documentation identifies a repatriation operation on 17–18 March. Some Iraqi prisoners remained for a separate return in May, so the March operation was not comprehensive.

The ICRC handed the remains of two Iraqi soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq War to British authorities at a Basra warehouse, preserving a humanitarian channel after Iraq’s invasion.

The Court rejected the U.S. security justification for the attacks, but did not uphold Iran’s treaty-commerce claim. It also dismissed the U.S. counterclaim.

The Hague District Court convicted Frans van Anraat of complicity in war crimes for supplying a mustard-gas precursor to Iraq and sentenced him to fifteen years. He was acquitted of complicity in...

OPCW material for 29 April remembrance described the continuing effects of Iraq’s chemical attacks in Iran and the medical experience developed in treating survivors.

The Hague Court of Appeal upheld van Anraat’s war crimes complicity conviction and increased his sentence to seventeen years. The case concerned chemical attacks including those on Iranian victims.