World Court to Deliver Genocide Ruling

Bosnian Muslim man Omerovic Saban,33, says his prayer near grave stones of his father Osman at the memorial center of Potocari, near Srebrenica, 100 kms northeast of Sarajevo, on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007. The slaughter of as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica will likely be central to Bosnia's arguments that Belgrade was deeply involved in the country's bloodshed The World Court will rule on Monday whether Serbia committed genocide in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war, a decision that could allow Bosnia to seek billions of dollars of compensation from its Balkan neighbor. (AP Photo/Amel Emric) (Amel Emric - AP)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The United Nations' highest court is ruling Monday whether Serbia is guilty of genocide for the killing, torture, rape and expulsion of Bosnian Muslims _ the first time an entire nation is being held to judicial account for the ultimate crime.

Bosnia has said the government in Belgrade under then-President Slobodan Milosevic armed, financed and encouraged Bosnian Serbs to conduct an ethnic cleansing campaign that amounted to genocide in an attempt to create a "Greater Serbia" during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Serbia has said it was not responsible for the actions of Serb paramilitary groups, that the war was a conflict among ethnic groups, and that there was no intent to destroy Bosnia's Muslim population in whole or in part _ a key element in genocide as defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention.

If it rules against Serbia, the court could order Belgrade to pay compensation, which would be determined in negotiations. Bosnia has said Serbia should pay restitution for life and property to both the victims and to the Bosnian state, claims that could total billions of dollars.

In a key ruling at the outset Monday, Judge Rosalyn Higgins rejected Serbia's argument that the court had no jurisdiction in the case, saying Serbia had the obligation to abide by the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, can only adjudicate disputes among U.N. member states. The Security Council suspended Yugoslavia's membership in 1992 and readmitted the country, then known as Serbia-Montenegro, in 2001.

Higgins also said Monday that Montenegro, which withdrew from the Serbia-Montenegro federation last year, was no longer part of the case, and that Serbia alone assumed the "legal identity" of the former Yugoslavia.

The case is being watched with passion in both Serbia and Bosnia.

Dozens of survivors stood Monday outside the Peace Palace, the court's cathedral-like seat, behind a banner that read: "Serbia is guilty" and "It was genocide in Bosnia."

Hedija Krdzic, 34, from the U.N. safe haven of Srebrenica, said a ruling against Serbia would help ease her grief but not erase it.

"I lost my father, brother and husband during the war," she said. "This verdict will not bring them back but maybe I will feel calmer afterward."

However, half of Bosnia hopes it will lose the case. As part of a 1995 peace accord, Bosnia is split into a Muslim-Croat federation with a Bosnian Serb state, known as Republika Srpska. Bosnian Serbs claim the lawsuit in The Hague is illegal since it was brought at a time when the country was at war and the Bosnian Serbs were not part of the government that filed the charges.

"Whatever it will be, Republika Srpska will not accept the verdict and will not implement it," Milorad Dodik, the state's prime minister, said earlier this month.

In Belgrade, the head of the Serb legal team, Radoslav Stojanovic, said if Serbia is convicted, "it would have far-reaching consequences which would burden our future for decades."

Bosnia submitted its genocide case to the court in 1993. Since then, the separate International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which judges individuals accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, has determined that the Serb onslaught in at least one instance, the attack on the Srebrenica enclave in 1995, amounted to genocide.

Two Bosnian Serb army officers were convicted of complicity in genocide or aiding and abetting genocide.

Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, also was brought to trial on genocide charges but died in the U.N. jail in The Hague last March, just weeks before his four-year-long trial was due to end.

___

Associated Press Writer Aida Cerkez-Robinson in Sarajevo contributed to this report.