Ukraine sues Iran over 2020 downed plane
Ukraine has filed a lawsuit against Iran at the UN’s International Court of Justice for the 2020 downing of a civilian airliner, Kiev’s Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.
According to a statement published on the ministry’s website, Ukraine, along with other members of the International Coordination Group for Assistance to the Victims of Flight PS752, which comprises Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the UK, are demanding that Tehran be held accountable for the incident.
The ministry noted that “no agreement has yet been reached between Iran and the Coordination Group to organize arbitration under Article 14 of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts aimed against the safety of civil aviation.”
On January 8, 2020, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Ukraine International Airlines was en route from Tehran to Kiev. Shortly after take-off from Imam Khomeini International Airport, the aircraft exploded in mid-air, killing all 176 people on board. The victims included citizens of Ukraine and Iran, along with nationals of the UK, Germany, Canada, Sweden and Afghanistan.
A week later, the Iranian military admitted that they had mistakenly shot down the Boeing, which was flying near a military facility, after confusing it for an “enemy target.” The incident occurred at a time when Iran was bracing for a potential US retaliation for ballistic missile strikes on American military bases in Iraq. Tehran ultimately blamed the incident on a string of human errors, as well as a trigger-happy operator of the air defense system.
In April this year, a military court in Iran handed down prison terms to ten defendants over the tragedy. The commander of the air defense system received 13 years, while nine others – the defense system’s crew, a Tehran military base commander, an officer at the regional operations control center and a regional Air Defense commander – were sentenced to between one and three years behind bars.
Iran also pledged to pay $150,000 dollars to the families of each victim, in addition to compensation payments ordered by the court, and announced in January 2022 that it had started transferring the funds.
Kiev, however, accused Tehran for failing to take full responsibility for the incident or ensure that such tragedies do not happen again.
