Netherlands ‘10pc liable’ for 350 men killed in Srebrenica

THE Netherlands is “10 per cent liable” for 350 deaths in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

After 350 men sought refuge in the UN base during the Bosnian War, outgunned and overrun Dutch peacekeeping troops handed them over to Bosnian Serb forces. Around 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed at Srebenica in total.

Judges upheld a previous ruling against the Dutch government that found it was liable for the ensuing massacre. But the court cut the state’s liability from 30 per cent to 10 per cent of an overall compensation claim, saying peacekeepers had only a “slim” chance of preventing the deaths.

That means claimants are likely to receive only around a few thousand euros in compensation. The case could set an international legal precedent for states’ liability when they contribute troops to peacekeeping operations.

The prime minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, resigned yesterday after being called as a suspect before a war crimes court in The Hague.