MOSCOW, September 6 (RAPSI) - The Supreme Court of the Netherlands held Friday that the Dutch State bears responsibility for the deaths of three men who lost their lives during 1995’s Srebrenica Massacre, according to a statement released by the court.

According to a backgrounder published by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which has adjudicated numerous cases arising from the massacre: “There is a multitude of evidence publicly available that proves that Bosnian Serb and other forces executed 7,000 to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim prisoners from Srebrenica in one week in July 1995.”

According to the Supreme Court statement, the three men had sought refuge in the Dutch battalion’s (Dutchbat) compound. According to the judgment, “Dutchbat decided not to evacuate them along with the battalion and instead sent them away from the compound on 13 July 1995. Outside the compound they were murdered by the Bosnian-Serb army or related paramilitary groups.”

In considering the decision, the Supreme Court focused on two key issues: whether Dutchbat’s actions could be attributed to the state, and whether Dutchbat’s actions were wrongful.

On the first point, the Supreme Court held that under public international law, Dutchbat’s conduct could be attributed “not only to the United Nations, which was in charge of the peace mission, but also to the State because the latter had effective control over the disputed conduct of Dutchbat,” according to the statement.

Furthermore, Dutchbat’s conduct was found to have been wrongful under Bosnian and Herzegovinian law, which the court deemed to be applicable in the case.

The state had advocated judicial restraint in reviewing Dutchbat’s conduct, but the Supreme Court disagreed. According to the text of the judgment: “The exercise of judicial restraint of this kind in such a review, as advocated in these parts of the appeal, would mean that there would be virtually no scope for the courts to assess the consequences of the conduct of a troop contingent in the context of a peace mission… Such far-reaching restraint is unacceptable.”

The judgment affirmed an earlier appellate court decision.