In an interlocutory judgment rendered today, the district court of The Hague held that the Dutch State is liable for the damages of both the widows and the children of men who were summarily executed in the former Dutch East Indies. In 2011, the district court of The Hague had already held that invoking the statute of limitations vis-à-vis the claims filed by widows of summarily executed men and one survivor from the town Rawagadeh, was unacceptable by standards of reasonableness and fairness. Today, the court held that invoking prescription with regard to the children is (also) contrary to good faith.

Click here for the press release on the website of the Netherlands Judiciary (available in Dutch).

The surviving relatives are represented by lawyers Liesbeth Zegveld and Brechtje Vossenberg.

Previously

• Interview with Liesbeth Zegveld: 'Sympathetic' regulation provides old widows with nothing.
• Meeting with widows of summary executions on South-Sulawesi
• Dutch State compensates ten widows of the summary executions on Sulawesi and offers apologies
• Negotiations with the State regarding the South-Sulawesi case have failed
• Declaration of liability of the State for massacres on South Sulawesi in 1947