Dr Cees Wiebes, a professor at the Amsterdam University Department for International Relations under whose guidance a team of experts compiled a report for the Dutch government, has said that there is no evidence to link Milosevic to the worst atrocity of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war -- the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosniaks after the fall of the eastern town of Srebrenica to besieging Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, the British newspaper The Observer reported on Monday.
"In our report (...) we come to the conclusion that Milosevic had no foreknowledge of the subsequent massacres. What we did find, however, was evidence to the contrary. Milosevic was very upset when he learnt about the massacres," The Observer quoted Wiebes as saying in a BBC radio programme.
Milosevic has been on trial in The Hague since 12 February 2002. He is charged with committing genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war in Croatia and Kosovo.
After completion of the prosecution case in February this year, "amici curiae", or friends of the court, demanded that the charges of genocide and complicity in genocide be dropped because they were not proved.
Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte admitted then that the charge of genocide was not directly proved, but the Trial Chamber found the indirect evidence sufficient and kept all 66 counts of the indictment, including that relating to genocide.
Professor Wiebes and his team of experts were commissioned by the Dutch government to look into the Srebrenica atrocity because a Dutch UN battalion handed over the UN-declared protected area of Srebrenica to the Bosnian Serb forces.
During their inquiry, the Dutch investigators had access to secret files, key diplomats and hundreds of witnesses to the massacre, in which the Serbs slaughtered all Bosniak men they considered to be fit to fight, including 12-year-old boys.
Wiebes said that his team had offered their evidence to del Ponte, but were brushed off. "What I heard from good sources in The Hague is that Ms del Ponte thinks that we're too nuanced and not seeing things in black and white," he said.
The tribunal's Office of the Prosecutor denied this, saying that the report was not relevant. "The purpose of the report was not to deal with criminal cases relating to Srebrenica, and was commissioned for other purposes," prosecution spokeswoman Florence Hartmann told The Observer.