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Serbia not guilty of genocide

A U.N. court still faulted the country for not preventing the slaughter in Srebrenica in 1995.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The United Nations' highest court cleared Serbia on Monday of genocide against Muslims in Bosnia's bloody war.

But the International Court of Justice said the country's former government should have stopped the 1995 slaughter of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and ordered Serb leaders to hand over the alleged architect of the massacre, Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic.

The case marked the first time a state had been taken to court over allegations of genocide, outlawed in a U.N. convention in 1948 after the Nazi Holocaust, although individuals have been convicted in genocide cases linked to massacres in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda.

In a 171-page ruling, the court said the massacre of thousands of Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces at the U.N.-protected Srebrenica enclave was an act of genocide.

But the 15-judge panel rejected Bosnia's claim that the Serbian state was responsible, saying it did not have effective control over the Bosnian Serb forces it had helped arm and finance.

Instead, the judges ruled that Serbia stood by and allowed the massacre to happen.

Serbia, "could, and should, have acted to prevent the genocide," the court's president, Rosalyn Higgins, told reporters.

The ruling sparked outrage in Bosnia, which filed the case, and among dozens of war survivors who gathered outside the gates of the International Court of Justice.

"How can they say not guilty of genocide when there are photos, video footage?" Zinaida Mujic of the Mothers of Srebrenica association said in Sarajevo.

Serbia's President Boris Tadic welcomed the ruling and said cooperating with the war crimes tribunal set up to handle cases from the former Yugoslavia was key to the country's future. The court has sought custody of Mladic for 12 years.

[Last modified February 27, 2007, 01:12:28]