ECHR To Hear Complaint Against Russia About MH17 Crash On November 24

AMSTERDAM (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th September, 2021) The meeting of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) concerning the joint complaint of the Netherlands and Ukraine against Russia, in connection with the crash of flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine, will be held on November 24, the court told Sputnik.

The court hearing in the case of the 2014 crash of the Malaysian Boeing flight MH17 in Donbas was supposed to take place on September 15, according to Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine Ivan Lishchyna. An exchange of views between the Netherlands and Russia on MH17 should have taken place by September, and answers to additional questions from the ECHR, including third parties (the government of Canada and the Human Rights Law Center at the University of Nottingham), should have been received from all participants, Lishchyna said.

The court did not answer Sputnik's questions about the work done during this time, adding that the case is pending before the Grand Chamber and will be heard on November 24, 2021.

Ukraine has filed five lawsuits with the ECHR related to Crimea and Donbas against Russia. Kiev has repeatedly accused Moscow of interfering in the affairs of Ukraine. Russia denies this and calls such allegations unfounded, emphasizing that it is not a party to the conflict in Donbas. In July 2020, the Strasbourg court officially notified Russia of the complaint filed by the Netherlands against it over the crash of the Malaysian Boeing. The Russian Foreign Ministry regarded the filing of the complaint as another blow to Russian-Dutch relations. Subsequently, all these complaints were combined.

Russia filed with the ECHR on July 22nd of this year its first-ever inter-state complaint against Ukraine. In the complaint, it accuses Kiev of the crash of flight MH17 due to a failure of the Ukrainian authorities to close the airspace. The court registered the complaint, but has not yet begun deliberation.

A Malaysian Boeing flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on July 17, 2014 near the village of Grabovo, Donetsk region of Ukraine, in the zone of armed conflict between the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR and the Ukrainian military. There were 298 people on board, of which 192 were Dutch citizens, 44 were Malaysian, 27 Australian, 12 Indonesians, 10 British, four Belgians, four Germans, three Filipinos, one Canadian, and one New Zealander. All died in the crash.

Kiev immediately blamed the militia for the plane crash, but the latter said they did not have the means to shoot down the plane at such an altitude.

The Russian side gave the Netherlands not only data from Russian radars, but also documentation showing that the Buk air defense missile system that hit Boeing belonged to Ukraine, and it was launched from Kiev-controlled territory, but this the information was ignored by the prosecutors, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Vinnichenko said. At the same time, on the first day of the court session, the prosecution admitted that it had received and was studying the data of the Russian prosecutor's office.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the accusations of Russia's involvement in the crash of the Malaysian Boeing are unfounded and regrettable, the investigation biased and one-sided. President Vladimir Putin noted that Russia is not allowed to investigate the plane crash in eastern Ukraine, and Moscow can recognize the results of the investigation only if it is permitted full participation therein.