Ali Rahimi

Ali Rahimi was one of the main characters in bringing Frans van Anraat to justice. Frans van Anraat is the person responsible for the delivery of chemicals to the Iraqi regime that were used in bombing the Kurds in the North of Iraq and in Sardasht, a largely Kurdish city in the West Azarbaijan province of Iran with more than 50,000 inhabitants, southwest of Lake Urmia about 1,300 metres above sea level. It was the first city in which civilians where attacked with chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. Although it happened even before Halabcha it didn't get much publicity at the time because Iran was being ignored by international community.

Contents

• Ali rahimi explaining random kitchen sinks
• Ali Rahimis talk at NIPSNIPS 2017 Test of time award presentation
• References

The population of Sardasht is Kurdish.

As he worked in the hospital at Sardasht he was a witness to the chemical bombardment executed by the former Iraqi regime. He dedicated his life and money to help the victims of the chemical bombardment of Sardasht and later also the victims of the bombardment of Halabja.

In 1989 he moved to the Netherlands and continued his quest to find the ones responsible for supplying the chemicals that helped the former Iraqi regime to create the dirty bombs. With the help of other high-profile Kurds in the north of Iraq he was able to provide the evidence to bring Frans van Anraat to justice. "Ali Rahimi is now known as the Simon Wiesenthal of Kurdistan".

The main thing Ali Rahimi achieved was, that through the Anraat case, he forced a western court to acknowledge a crime was committed against the Kurds. This is exceptional because usually the Kurds are addressed as Iranians, Turks, Syrian or Iraqis. This had never been done before.