About Arnold Karskens

Arnold Karskens (1954) is author, an investigative journalist and a war correspondent. In his 35 year plus career he has visited more dan 35 different conflict zones. He has covered conflicts as diverse as El Salvador, the Philippines, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Angola, Libya and Syria. He also covered the Iraq-Iran war in 1987, and the only Dutch journalist in Baghdad at the beginning of the Second Gulf War in January 1991. He was the Last Dutchman Standing in Baghdad during the Third Gulf War in March and April of 2003.  He always works independently. Like covering ‘unembedded’ the war in the Afghan Province of Uruzgan and Kunduz.

In addition to his work as a war correspondent, he has spent much time uncovering and publishing information about Dutch war criminals and Dutch businessmen who’ve ignored International sanctions and illegally exported weapons to war zones. Thanks to his research, Dutchman Frans van Anraat was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December 2005, (in appeal 16,5 years) for delivering the precursors for mustard gas, tabun, and sarin gas to Iraq in the 1980s. He was leading in the hunt for the last Dutch escaped WO2 warcriminal SS’er Klaas Carel Faber.

Arnold Karskens is chairman of the stichting Onderzoek Oorlogsmisdaden, foundation Research Warcrimes. 

He writes for www.TheKarskensTimes.com and works next to this for Dutch and Flemish radio and television. He has published more than 12 books. In his magnum opus “Pleisters voor de ogen” – “Plasters for the eyes”, he wrote the history of Dutch war correspondents from the Eighty Years’War (1586-1648) until modern times.

In 2008 he won the peace award Journalist voor de vrede and the human rights award Clara Meijer-Wichmann Penning for his independent reporting.