Bosnia appeal in genocide case against Serbia rejected

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) - The International Court of Justice in The Hague Thursday rejected Bosnia's appeal to review a 2007 genocide case that cleared Serbia on Thursday.

According to Bosnia Herzegovina's presidency, the request for the revision of the genocide case was rejected on the grounds that "the decision to reopen the case is not a joint decision of the council members".

"On the grounds that Bosnia and Herzegovina's decision to reopen the genocide case against Serbia was not a decision taken by the competent authorities of the state, nothing can be done about the application made for the revision of the decision on February 26th, 2007," says the statement from the office of presidency.

The Bosniak member of Bosnia Herzegovina's tripartite presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, announced two weeks ago that an appeal would be lodged against the International Court of Justice's 2007 verdict that cleared Serbia of complicity in genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian War.

The lawsuit has its origins in the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide that occurred when Bosnian Serb forces killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys after overrunning a UN-protected safe area during the Bosnian War.

In February 2007, the International Court of Justice in The Hague rejected the genocide case taken by Bosnia against the state of Serbia.

Although it described Srebrenica as a case of genocide, it did not find Serbia guilty of being directly responsible for the killings. The statute of limitation to reopen the case will expire at the end of February.