The Netherlands does not owe compensation to relatives of two Bosnian Muslims who were handed to Serb forces by Dutch peacekeepers and slain in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, a court ruled Wednesday.
The Hague District Court said the government cannot be held responsible because the Dutch peacekeepers were operating in Bosnia under a United Nations mandate.
The plaintiffs claimed their relatives should have been protected because they were working for the Dutch peacekeepers.
The case was brought by Hasan Nuhanovic, an interpreter who lost his brother, mother and father; and relatives of Rizo Mustafic, an electrician who was killed. They claimed their relatives should have been protected because they worked for the Dutch peacekeepers.
"The nightmare continues," Nuhanovic said after the verdict. He said he would appeal the decision.
Nuhanovic, 40, was calm after the verdict was read out by presiding Judge Hans Hofhuis. "I have been betrayed so many times before in my life," he said.
Earlier this year, the same Dutch court ruled it had no jurisdiction in a larger class action compensation claim against the U.N. by The Mothers of Srebrenica victims' group for failing to prevent the Srebrenica massacre because the world body is covered by immunity from the legal process.
Both cases are seeking compensation for the failure of several hundred Dutch U.N. troops to protect Bosnian Muslims when Serb forces overran the Srebrenica enclave in 1995.
As the outnumbered and outgunned peacekeepers looked on, Serb forces separated families and drove away some 8,000 men and boys for summary execution.
Marco Gerritsen, a lawyer for The Mothers of Srebrenica, said he does not believe Wednesday's ruling will have an effect on their case.
In a telephone interview, Gerritsen said he expects to appeal the case against the U.N. in Srebrenica all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary.
"That responsibility (for failing to prevent genocide) should be more important than the functional immunity of the United Nations," he said.
The Dutch role in the Europe's worst post-World War II massacre remains a national trauma in the Netherlands.
In 2002, the government resigned when an independent report by the respected Netherlands Institute for War Documentation blamed political leaders for sending ill-prepared troops on an impossible mission to Bosnia at the height of ethnic bloodletting in the Balkan wars.
Dutch Defense Ministry spokesman Roger van de Wetering said the government was studying the ruling.
"We are awaiting further steps," he said. "We have seen in the media that the claimants are appealing, so we are waiting."
In June, Nuhanovic told the court Dutch soldiers ordered him to translate to his family that they had to leave the U.N. compound where they had sought shelter. He said he knew they would be killed. "My mother was crying, I was crying. The only person that wasn't crying was my brother. He was 22 and very proud. 'Hasan, don't beg them for my life any more,'" the witness said.
