Kids of men executed in Dutch East Indies to claim damages from Dutch state

More than 500 children of men believed to have been executed by the Dutch army in the former Dutch East Indies between 1946 and 1949 plan to claim compensation from the Dutch state, lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld said to RTL Nieuws.

Zegveld sent a list of 520 names of these now elderly children, complete with place and date of their fathers' executions, to Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and Foreign Affairs Minister Bert Koenders. She hopes to avoid that they have to file a lawsuit against the Dutch state.

The lawyer wants the system in which the widows of these men received compensation, to also apply to their children. Since 2013 women who have proof that their husbands were executed could claim compensation without having to go through court. 

In 2015 the court in The Hague ruled that children, like widows, are entitled to compensation in principle.

According to RTL, the Dutch government refused to comment on the matter. The State is awaiting the outcome of a case that the children of executed men filed in South Sulawesi.