AFP
The Hague
A Dutch appeals court ruled Wednesday that three former UN commanders will not be prosecuted for the deaths of three Muslim men who were murdered after leaving a UN compound in Srebrenica in 1995.
Relatives of the victims took UN Dutch Battalion commanders to court five years ago, saying that the three were expelled into certain death at the hands of Bosnian Serb forces during the darkest episode of the country’s 1991-95 civil war.
Almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered and buried in mass graves in mid-July 1995 at Srebrenica by Serb forces commanded by Ratko Mladic in the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II.
Prosecutors in 2013 said they would not charge Dutchbat commander Thom Karremans, his deputy Rob Franken and personnel officer Berend Oosterveen for the three deaths, but the victims’ families appealed.
“The court’s military chamber dismisses the appeal,” the Arnhem-Leeuwarden appeals court said in a statement.
The complaint was made by relatives of Muhamed Nuhanovic, his father Ibro, and Rizo Mustafic.
Nuhanovic, then 27, was employed as a translator for the Dutch UN contingent and Mustafic as an electrician.
The victims sought safety with Dutch troops, but the plaintiffs say that they were forced to flee into the hands of the Bosnian Serb army commanded by Mladic – himself now on trial for genocide and war crimes at The Hague-based Yugoslavia war crimes court.
In Muhamed Nuhanovic’s case, the court said Dutch commanders were not obliged to have known that “there was a strong chance that he would be murdered” if he had left the compound.
Nuhanovic’s father Ibro was told he could stay in the compound but decided to leave with his wife and son.
“It was a brave decision and therefore deserves respect ... but it was his own decision and the accused can therefore not be held responsible,” the court said.
Mustafic should have been able to stay in the UN compound, but was erroneously told he had to leave.
“There is no question of malicious intent. It was a stupid mistake which means at most a manslaughter prosecution,” said the court, adding that the charge would have expired because of a statute of limitations.
Dutch human rights lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld, who represents the families, said that she was “very disappointed” by the ruling.
She particularly pointed to the court’s contention that commanders were “not obliged to know” that the men would be killed after leaving the compound “when the victims themselves knew very well that they would be murdered if they left”.
“There is a world of difference in the reality the court reflects in its verdict and the reality felt by thousands of refugees at the time. It’s shocking,” Zegveld said.
She said a similar case was being prepared to be taken shortly to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Karremans was relieved at the verdict and regarded the case as closed, his lawyer Gert-Jan Knoops told the NOS public broadcaster.
It meant Karremans and his senior officers “cannot be criminally charged for enclave’s fall and its dramatic consequences”, Knoops said.
“I would now like to continue my life,” Karremans told NOS.
The role of Dutch blue helmets at Srebrenica has cast a long shadow in the Netherlands, with an entire cabinet resigning in 2002 after a report laid some blame for the atrocity on the government.
The Dutch government last year said it would pay the families €20,000 each in compensation, after a civil court ruling that the State was indeed liable for the deaths.
Some 2,000 Dutch soldiers served as peacekeepers at the height of the three-year conflict, which left more than 100,000 people dead and another 2.2mn homeless.