First civil action by survivors of Srebrenica against the Netherlands is dismissed on all counts

The Dutch District Court in The Hague today handed down its judgment on the actions brought before it by the family of the electrician Rizo Mustafic, murdered at Srebrenica, and by Hasan Nuhanovic, who lost his parents and brother, dismissing their complaints on all counts. The Court had been asked to decide whether the Dutch State and the Dutch command of the Dutch battalion serving with the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) should be held responsible for the shameful failings of Dutch forces who delivered Bosnian refugees seeking their protection into the hands of their Serb murderers.

"The nightmare continues for the Mustafic family and Nuhanovic, as it does for the families of 239 other murdered men and boys who were handed over to the Serb forces after being given refuge by the Dutch. Even after they had watched Bosniak women raped and Bosniak men and boys killed only a few metres away from them, Dutch soldiers cold-bloodedly sent those people to their deaths. While we may feel sympathy for those frightened soldiers and their commander, nevertheless it was their minimum duty at least to save those people they had been ordered to protect. It is time that the Dutch government finally showed respect for the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, accepted responsibility for the failings of its soldiers, apologised and compensated the survivors for what they have lost", observes Tilman Zülch, General Secretary of Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV). Zülch, who has campaigned on behalf of the people of Srebrenica since 1992, was in 2006 awarded the Srebrenica Award against Genocide 1995 by the Mothers of Srebrenica organisation.

Background:

Hasan Nuhanovic spent the night of 12-13 July 1995 together with his parents and brother in a makeshift office on the UNPROFOR base at Potocari, on the outskirts of Srebrenica, working to the orders of the Dutch officer Andre de Haan. De Haan, who was staying in the same room with them and a doctor and nurse, had in the past been a welcome guest of the family and had enjoyed Mrs Nuhanovic's cooking . Nevertheless when Mrs Nuhanovic came close to breaking down after hearing that nine men had been killed in the area in front of the UNPROFOR base he did nothing to help her. The following morning, between 5 and 6 a.m., de Haan said, "Hasan, tell your mother, your brother and your father they must leave the base."

Nuhanovic has painstakingly researched the story of the terrible events at Srebrenica which he documented in meticulous detail in a 550-page book, "Under the UN Flag", before taking his case to court.