Serbia:The highest United Nations court ruled yesterday that Serbia did not commit systematic genocide during the Bosnian war, but was guilty of failing to prevent a genocidal act at Srebrenica, where some 8,000 Muslims were murdered in July 1995.
Belgrade welcomed a verdict that saved it from potentially huge compensation claims from Bosnia, where Muslim and Croat leaders expressed some disappointment at the decision and local Serbs warned that it would stoke tension in the ethnically divided state.
"The court finds by 13 votes to two that Serbia has not committed genocide," said Judge Rosalyn Higgins at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. "The court finds that Serbia has violated the obligation to prevent genocide . . . in respect of the genocide that occurred in Srebrenica."
The case at the ICJ, which is known as the World Court, marked the first time a country had been tried for genocide, which was outlawed in 1948 in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust.
Serbia's former and current leaders denied the charge, complained of being made scapegoats for the wars that dismembered Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and warned that a guilty verdict would further isolate the country, leave a perpetual stain on its reputation, and lay it open to potentially ruinous claims for reparation from Bosnia.
The court found that it could not prove that anyone in Serbia, nor any state body, deliberately tried to "destroy in whole or in part" Bosnia's Muslim population.
The judges also rejected Bosnia's argument that the widespread murder, rape and torture committed by Serb or Bosnian Serb forces during a war fuelled by Serbian nationalist rhetoric, weapons and money, was tantamount to responsibility for genocide.
Addressing the Srebrenica massacre - for which a parallel UN war crimes court has already convicted two Bosnian Serbs for genocide and indicted others, including Gen Ratko Mladic - the ICJ found that Belgrade had given "considerable military and financial support" to the Bosnian Serb leadership, but did not order the Srebrenica massacre nor have command over the soldiers that committed it.
"All indications are to the contrary: that the decision to kill the adult male population of the Muslim community in Srebrenica was taken by some members of the main staff of the [Bosnian Serb army] but without instructions from or effective control by [Serbia]," the court said in a three-hour summary of its ruling.
The judges did find Belgrade guilty, however, of failing to prevent the slaughter at Srebrenica, which was the biggest massacre in Europe since 1945.
The court ruled that Serbia's leaders should have made "the best effort within their power to try and prevent the tragic events then taking shape" in the so-called UN safe haven, the scale of which "might have been surmised". The judgment also condemned Belgrade for failing to catch Gen Mladic and send him to the UN war crimes court.
"Serbia shall immediately take effective steps to ensure full compliance with its obligation . . . to transfer individuals accused of genocide or any of those other acts for trial by the [tribunal] . . . and to co-operate fully with that tribunal," the ruling said.
Lawyers for both sides said they were satisfied with the long-awaited verdict, while Serb president Boris Tadic urged his country's parliament to acknowledge the court's finding by belatedly condemning the massacre at Srebrenica.
In Sarajevo, Muslim and Croat members of Bosnia's tripartite presidency said they were disappointed that Serbia had not been found guilty of genocide, while their Serb colleagues said the verdict would not aid reconciliation between communities.
"I am of the opinion that the ruling will have negative consequences for relations within Bosnia-Herzegovina, which I see as something completely wrong," said Nebojsa Radmanovic of a case that was filed with the World Court in 1993. "It would have been better to spend this time building trust," he said.
There was also some anger outside the court at The Hague, where about 50 people demonstrated in favour of a genocide verdict.
"A ruling that Serbia committed genocide in Bosnia means everything to me," said Hedija Krdzic (34), whose husband, father and grandfather were murdered at Srebrenica.
"Without such a ruling, I fear that one day the massacre will be forgotten."