Human Rts Crt Rejects Case On French Cluster Bombs In Kosovo (SERBIA)

KOSOVO, Serbia, 31 May 2007 (Dow Jones International News)

STRASBOURG, France (AP)--The European Court of Human Rights Thursday threw out a lawsuit by two residents of Kosovo who blamed France for the death of a family member in a cluster bomb explosion in 2000, ruling it had no jurisdiction over acts attributable to the U.N.

Gadaf Behrami, 12, died while playing in the hills of the Kosovska Mitrovica municipality when a bomb that had been dropped during the bombardment of Yugoslavia by North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999 exploded. His brother Bekim was seriously injured in the blast and later had numerous eye operations.

Bekim Behrami and his father sued France, saying the death of Gadaf was caused by the failure of the French KFOR troops to mark or defuse the undetonated bombs on the site. A French-led brigade was responsible for Kosovska Mitrovica as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force under a U.N. mandate.

The Strasbourg court ruled that KFOR's inaction was, in principle, attributable to the U.N., which had a separate legal personality from its member states and could not be sued for breaching the European Convention of Human Rights. [ 31-05-07 1643GMT ]

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