Hasan Nuhanovic, who lost his parents and brother in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, speaks to reporters at the Hague District Court on Wednesday. He said he will appeal the court's decision not to compensate the relatives of Bosnian Muslims who were handed to Serb forces by Dutch peacekeepers. (Fred Ernst/Associated Press)

The Netherlands does not owe compensation to relatives of Bosnian Muslims who were handed to Serb forces by Dutch peacekeepers and slain in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, a court ruled Wednesday.

The Hague District Court said the Netherlands government cannot be held responsible because the Dutch peacekeepers were operating in Bosnia under a United Nations mandate.

The plaintiffs claimed their dead relatives should have been protected because they were working for the Dutch peacekeepers.

The case was brought forward six years ago by Hasan Nuhanovic, an interpreter who lost his brother, mother and father, and by relatives of Rizo Mustafic, an electrician who was killed.

"The nightmare continues," Nuhanovic, 40, said after the verdict was read out by Judge Hans Hofhuis.

He said he would appeal the decision.

"I have been betrayed so many times before in my life," he said.

A similar class action claim was launched by a group of survivors called "The Mothers of Srebrenica." Earlier this year, a Dutch court ruled it had no jurisdiction in the group's compensation claim against the UN for failing to prevent the Srebrenica massacre because the world body is covered by immunity from legal process.

'My mother was crying, I was crying'

Both cases were seeking compensation for the failure of several hundred Dutch UN troops to protect Bosnian Muslims when Serb forces overran the Srebrenica enclave in 1995. As the outnumbered and outgunned peacekeepers looked on, Serb forces separated families and drove away some 8,000 men and boys for summary execution.

The Dutch role in the Europe's worst post-Second World War massacre remains a national trauma in the Netherlands.

In 2002, the government resigned when an independent report by the respected Netherlands Institute for War Documentation blamed political leaders for sending ill-prepared troops on an impossible mission to Bosnia at the height of ethnic bloodletting in the Balkan wars.

In June, Nuhanovic told the court Dutch soldiers ordered him to translate to his family that they had to leave the UN compound where they had sought shelter. Nuhanovic, who was hired to work as a translator for the UN's Dutch troops, was allowed to stay because he had a UN identity card.

He said he knew his family would be killed.

"My mother was crying, I was crying. The only person that wasn't crying was my brother. He was 22 and very proud. 'Hasan, don't beg them for my life anymore,"' Nuhanovic said.