Court Refused to Launch Investigation Against Karremans, Nuhanović Awaits Call from Dutch Lawyer

The Military Court in Arnhem decided on Wednesday that retired Dutch army general and former commander of the UN Dutch Battalion, Thom Karremans, will not be prosecuted for genocide in Srebrenica, reports the Patria News Agency.

Karremans will not be prosecuted for command responsibility during the genocide in Srebrenica, meaning he will not be held criminally liable for the murdered Bosniaks in eastern Bosnia.

Former UN translator Hasan Nuhanović, who filed the criminal complaint against Karremans, told the BiH news agency Patria that there is a theoretical possibility to appeal the decision of the Court in Arnhem to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, but he is unsure about his next steps.

- I haven't had time to talk to my lawyer. I don't even know what the court in the Netherlands stated as the reason for refusing to prosecute Karremans. I will find out everything later – Nuhanović told NAP in a brief phone conversation.

The Dutch Battalion's task in 1995 was to protect civilians in besieged Srebrenica, but the soldiers did not do so; on the contrary, they handed over civilians to Serb forces, after which an even more massive killing of Bosniaks in Srebrenica followed than before. 

According to official data, more than 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in Srebrenica, although associations gathering Srebrenica survivors claim the number of murdered exceeds 10,000.

The victims of the Srebrenica genocide sought for Karremans and other members of the Dutch Battalion to be prosecuted and convicted, but there were no convictions.

Karremans will be remembered for shaking hands with the Army of Republika Srpska General Ratko Mladić, who is on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague for genocide in Srebrenica and other places across Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Furthermore, Bosniak women who were imprisoned in the "Sonja" camp in Vogošća claim that Karremans also visited Vogošća, where he also raped captured Bosniak women, writes Patria.