The Supreme Court in the Netherlands will make a final verdict on Srebrenica on Friday at the 2017 Appellate Court ruling that the Netherlands is partly responsible for the death of some 300 Srebrenica victims in July 1995.
Van Diepen Van der Kroef attorneys say that more than 6,000 members of the Srebrenica genocide family sued the Netherlands in 2007, and the Hague District Court in 2014 found that this country was responsible for the deaths of more than 300 men the Dutch battalion who were expelled from UN base on 13 July 1995 knowing that he would be killed.
On this verdict, the victims’ families and the Netherlands have lodged an appeal, and the Appellate Court in 2017 confirmed the responsibility of the Netherlands.
In September 2013, the Supreme Court ruled on the lawsuit of Hasan Nuhanovic that the Netherlands was responsible for the death of three Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995, according to BIRN BiH.
During the height of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, the so-called Dutchbat was sent to Srebrenica to protect the town from advancing Bosnian Serbs. But when the town was overrun, the lightly-armed peacekeepers capitulated and some 8,000 Muslim Bosniak boys and men were massacred.
The mass murder was Europe’s worst single atrocity since World War II and was classified as genocide by international courts.
The Appeals Court found there was a 30 percent probability that the Dutchbat could have prevented the killings and as such victims would be given 30 percent of damages. Damages were due to be calculated at a later date.
