Netherlands liable for deaths

The Netherland’s highest court has upheld a ruling holding the country partially liable for the deaths of Muslim men at Srebrenica in 1995, where 8,000 were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces.

The Dutch Supreme court said on Friday that Dutch troops, acting as UN peacekeepers, had a 10 per cent liability in the in the deaths of 350 Bosnian Muslims after they were expelled from a United Nations base nearby the staging ground for the grisly massacre, the worst mass murder in Europe since World War Two.

The ruling could set a crucial precedent establishing the liability of national governments for the actions of their troops while in UN peacekeeping roles. The Associated Press reported that the ruling, the final chapter in years of legal wrangling and appeals, has been the longest running-legal battle by the launched by the families of the victims of Srebrenica.