Neither Croatia nor Serbia committed genocide against each other’s populations during the Balkan wars.

That is the verdict from the top UN court, the International Court of Justice.

In a complex judgement, the court dismissed both a Croatian claim and a Serbian counter-claim.

Judge Peter Tomka, the President of the International Court of Justice, said: “The court considers that even taken together, and interpreted in light of the contemporaries’ overall political and military context, the passages from the Briony transcript quoted by Serbia, like the rest of the document, do not establish the existence of the specific intent (Dolus Specialis)which characterises genocide.”

The claims of genocide arose from atrocities committed after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

The court said many crimes had been committed by both sides.

Croatia was seeking reparations against Belgrade for backing a rebel Serb minority in carrying out ethnic cleansing – in particular in the easter