[JURIST] The Netherlands Ministry of Defense [official website] has announced plans to appeal a July ruling finding Netherlands liable for the deaths of 300 of the men and boys killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre [BBC timeline; JURIST news archive]. The court found that the UN-backed Dutch troops failed to adequately protect the Bosniaks at the UN compound in Potocari, which was overrun by Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian Civil War [JURIST news archive]. Defense Ministry spokesman Klaas Meijer said of the appeal [AFP report]: “The Srebrenica massacre is a terrible tragedy for which the Bosnian Serb troops, and only they, are responsible.”

Survivors have filed similar suits against the Dutch government relating to the massacre. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands in September ruled that the state was responsible for the deaths of three Bosnian Muslims [JURIST report] who were murdered shortly after being forced to leave a UN designated “safe area” controlled by the Dutch Battalion (Dutchbat) during the massacre. Relatives of the victims filed the complaint [JURIST report] with the Dutch prosecutor’s office in July 2010 alleging that three Dutch soldiers, operating as UN peacekeepers, were complicit in the commission of war crimes and genocide during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. The complaint argued that the soldiers knew the victims would be killed if they were handed over to Serbian troops.