Final verdict on Dutch responsibility for the suffering of Srebrenica victims in '95 to be announced on Friday

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Dutch Supreme Court will deliver a final verdict on July 19 on the appeals filed by the Association "Movement of Mothers of the Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves" and the State of the Netherlands against the 2017 ruling of the Court of Appeal, according to which the Netherlands is partially responsible for the deaths of around 300 Srebrenica victims killed in July 1995. 

Munira Subašić, president of the "Movement of Mothers of the Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves," told BIRN BiH that the mothers will attend the reading of this verdict and that she expects justice to be served. 

"The Netherlands claims it is a country of justice and law – we will see how much they have accepted their responsibility. They accepted it in the Nuhanović case and in the Mustafić case. They cannot differentiate that some people suffered one way and others another. Probably for these people who were in Potočari, in the UNPROFOR base, who accepted that they are 30 percent responsible, they will presumably accept it further," Subašić stated. 

From the law firm Van Diepen Van der Kroef, it is noted that more than 6,000 family members of those killed in the Srebrenica genocide sued the Netherlands in 2007, and the District Court in The Hague ruled in 2014 that the state was responsible for the deaths of more than 300 men whom the Dutch battalion expelled from the UN base on July 13, 1995, knowing they would be killed. 

Both the families of the victims and the State of the Netherlands appealed this ruling, and the Court of Appeal confirmed the Netherlands' responsibility in 2017. 

In September 2013, the Supreme Court, based on a lawsuit by Hasan Nuhanović, issued a ruling according to which the Netherlands is responsible for the deaths of three Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995.