The suit, lodged by 35 citizens from former Yugoslavia, is thought to be the first of its kind to go before a European tribunal, and could serve as a test case for other people seeking damages from NATO's 19 members.

The case will be heard in a civil court in the western city of Bonn, with the relatives seeking total damages of about 3.5 million euros (4.1 million dollars).

Ten civilians were killed and 17 badly wounded on May 30, 1999, when NATO planes launched missiles at a bridge in Varvarin, during the alliance's campaign to end Belgrade's crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Three people, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed and five wounded when the planes initially struck.

Seven died and 12 others were hurt, many of them people who had come to help the victims hit earlier, when the aircraft attacked again minutes later.

The bridge was close to the town's market, which was crowded early on the Sunday afternoon of the airstrike, and was hit during good weather.

NATO said it was a "designated" and "legitimate target" but an inquiry found that the bridge was only capable of supporting a maximum 12-tonne load, making it too small to shift much military equipment.

Varvarin lies some 180 kilometres (110 miles) southeast of Belgrade, which was bombed by NATO, and 200 kilometres from Kosovo, the province where former president Slobodan Milosevic had ordered his troops to end an ethnic Albanian uprising.

No Serbian military infrastructure was thought to be near the town, which lies in a largely agricultural area.

A lawyer for the relatives, Ulrich Dost, claims Germany knew of and approved the attack.

He said it was a deliberate act meant to hit civilians and that despite the fact the German military was not involved, Germany as a NATO member must take responsibility for the deaths and violations of human rights.

Dost said the victims could sue based on a 1977 protocol added to the Geneva Convention which calls on signatories to distinguish between civilians and the military and "direct their operations only against military objectives."

According to former Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica, 1,500 Serb civilians, 81 of them children, died in NATO's two-and-a-half-month campaign to force an end to Belgrade's repression in Kosovo.

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