After Van Anraats arrest upon the request of the US in Italy in 1989, his offices in Switzerland and Italy were searched and documents were confiscated. Van Anraat was released pending his trial and fled to Iraq, where he lived for the next 14 years, was granted the Iraqi nationality and given an Arabic name. When Hussein's regime fell in 2003, Van Anraat returned to the Netherlands. He was arrested on 6 December 2004 for complicity in war crimes and genocide. On 23 December 2005, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for complicity in war crimes, but the court decided that the charges of complicity in genocide could not be substantiated.