Canada, Ukraine, Sweden and the United Kingdom, united in a coalition for the victims of the crash of a Ukrainian plane shot down in Iran in 2020, have seized the International Court of Justice against Tehran for compensation, announced this proceeding on Wednesday.
These countries believe that Iran “violated a series of obligations” of civil aviation by shooting down the Boeing operating Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 after takeoff from Tehran, causing the death of the 176 occupants, most of them Iranians and Canadians.
The coalition, which had nationals on board, announced in June that it would sue Iran before the ICJ, carrying out their ultimatum issued in December.
It asked Tehran to submit to binding arbitration within six months to “hold Iran accountable”.
The four countries are asking the Tax Court for “full reparation for all the damages suffered” and to oblige Iran to pay “full compensation to the plaintiffs for the material and moral damages suffered by the victims and their families”.
According to them, Iran must also return the property of the victims and publicly recognize its “unjustified international acts”.
The four countries rely on the Montreal Convention of 1971, which regulates offenses against civil aviation.
On January 8, 2020, the Iranian armed forces shot down the plane to connect Tehran to kyiv. They did not admit until three days later that they had shot down the aircraft “by mistake”.
On June 28, Iran for its part decided to sue Canada before the highest court of the UN for having, in its legislation, allowed the victims of terrorist attacks to claim compensation before its courts in Tehran.
In its complaint, Iran argues that Canada, which listed the Islamic Republic as a country sponsoring terrorism in 2012, violated Iranian state immunity.
The ICJ was created after World War II to resolve disputes between member states of the United Nations. Its judgments are without appeal, but can take years.