SARAJEVO
The Dutch Supreme Court will on Friday, September 6, issue a final judgment in the case brought against the Netherlands by group of victims from Srebrenica genocide, AA reports.
Hasan Nuhanovic and members of Rizo Mustafic family are holding the Netherlands responsible for its failure to prevent the deaths of Rizo Mustafic and Nuhanovic’s mother and father Ibro and Nasiha, as well as his younger brother Muhamed in July 1995 when Army of Republika Srpska, led by indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, overrun Srebrenica, Eastern Bosnia.
"What is justice today? The state of Netherlands should have claim itself responsible long time ago. At least that is how it should be done in an ideal world. But we do not live in a such world, and we have to seek for the justice through the court procedures. We are one very sad group of people I can say,“ Nuhanovic told AA.
The UN Dutchbat was in Srebrenica at the time of the massacre with a task to protect civilians in a "UN safe heaven". After the Bosnian Serb army entered the city and civilians started to leave their homes in search for help, the Commander of the battalion granted them protection inside of the base at Potocari, nearby village. At that time, Bosnian Serb soldiers were killing civilians outside the base. Finally, the Dutchbat handed civilians over to the Bosnian Serb forces.
Families Mustafic and Nuhanovic were inside of the base, before ordered to leave the compound.
“We have to remind people that my family together with Rizo Mustafic, who was electrician for the Dutchbat, were handed over to Serbian forces on July 13, 1995. 10 years ago we started this case in the Netherlands and we expect to hear the final decision this week,” Nuhanovic said.
About 10.000 people were killed during the genocide in Srebrenica, and over 30.000 expelled.
The District Court in the Hague in 2008 ruled that the Dutch Government could not be held responsible because the peacekeeper forces were operating under the UN mandate. This decision was quashed in 2011 by the Dutch Court of Appeal that draw conclusion how, although the Dutch force at Potocari was in principle under the command and control of the UN, the Dutch government had assumed ‘effective control’ over it, and that Dutchbat's unlawful actions in contravention of international humanitarian law were attributable to the Netherlands as well as to the United Nations, which the Dutch courts had found to be unaccountable by virtue of claimed global immunity.
The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia indicted general Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic for, among other things, genocide in Srebrenica. Their trials are ongoing.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
