Serbia ordered to hand over genocide suspects

The United Nations’ highest court today exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility for, or complicity in, genocide during the 1992/95 Bosnia war, but did rule that Serbia failed to prevent the mass slaughter of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica.

In a lengthy ruling, the International Court of Justice said the leaders of Serbia also failed to comply with its international obligation to punish those who carried out the genocide in July 1995, and ordered Belgrade to hand over suspects for trial by a separate UN court.

It specifically referred to General Ratko Mladic, the general who oversaw the Bosnian Serb onslaught at Srebrenica, who is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a separate UN court.

However, it rejected Bosnia’s claim for monetary reparations.

“Financial compensation is not the appropriate form of reparation for the breach of the obligation to prevent genocide,” the judgment said.

Reading the decision, Judge Rosalyn Higgins said it was clear in Belgrade there was a serious risk of a massive slaughter in Srebrenica, where some 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed.

But Serbia “has not shown that it took any initiative to prevent what happened or any action on its part to avert the atrocities which were being committed.”

Serbia’s claim that it was powerless to prevent the massacres “hardly tallies with their known influence” over the Bosnian Serb army, said the ruling by the court, also known as the World Court.