Europe’s top human rights court has ruled unanimously that Russia was responsible for downing Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.
MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014 as it flew eastern Ukraine on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Among those killed were 38 Australian citizens and residents.
Russia has always denied responsibility, disputing findings from official investigations that the Russian military had supplied the surface-to-air missiles to Ukrainian separatists.
On Wednesday, the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Russia was responsible for downing MH17.
The ECHR ruled that Russia had failed to conduct an adequate investigation into the incident, to cooperate with requests for information or provide legal remedies for survivors.
Russia has always denied involvement in the downing of MH17.
Its lack of cooperation and continued denial of any involvement has caused additional suffering for the victims’ relatives, the court said.
The court also found that Moscow had repeatedly and systematically violated human rights in Ukraine by performing indiscriminate military attacks, summary executions of civilians, torture including the use of rape as a weapon of war, unjustified displacement and transfer of civilians and other violations.
The ECHR is an international court of the Council of Europe from which Russia was expelled in 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s parliament then voted in 2023 to end the ECHR’s jurisdiction in the country.
‘Null and void’
Australia and European nations have long blamed Russia for the shooting down of MH17, the second aircraft lost by Malaysian Airlines in 2014.
In 2022, a Dutch court tried and convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian for murder over the shooting down of MH17.
The offenders were tried in absentia, meaning they remain at large, and it is unlikely they will ever serve their life sentences.
And in May this year, the United Nations’s International Civil Aviation Organization ruled Russia was responsible and broke international law by using weapons against a civil aircraft.
Responding to Wednesday’s ECHR ruling, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said: “Nothing can take away this suffering and grief, but I hope the verdict offers a sense of justice and recognition.”
A majority of those on the airliner were Dutch.
Ukraine’s Justice Ministry, in a statement on the Telegram messaging app, hailed the ECHR ruling as “one of the most important in the practice of interstate cases”.
Ahead of Wednesday’s ruling, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would not abide by any court decisions.
“We consider them null and void,” he said.
Reuters/ABC