Can Russia be accused of violating human rights in the crash of the MH17 plane in 2014? The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) examined the question, this Wednesday, during a hearing, relatives of victims demanding the truth to be able to mourn.
This hearing in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) of the Grand Chamber, the most important formation of the ECHR, which ended at 1:30 p.m., concerns the admissibility of three applications between States: two opposing Ukraine to Russia on the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014, and a third between the Netherlands and Russia for the crash of the Boeing MH17.
“To date, no one has taken responsibility [de la catastrophe], which continues to add to the already enormous pain of the loved ones”, pleaded Babette Koopman for the Dutch government. On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed while flying over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members. crew on board. An international team of investigators say the aircraft was shot down over the area of armed conflict with pro-Russian separatists by a missile brought in from a Russian military base, likely to fight against Ukrainian forces. Moscow has always denied any involvement.
“Power Play”
“Because of the behavior of the Russians, the legal proceedings are unnecessarily delayed”, further complicating the mourning of the relatives of the victims, insisted before the court Piet Ploeg, the president of the Air Disaster MH17 foundation. “The relatives feel helpless, because they are involved in a geopolitical conflict over which they have no influence, added the one who lost his brother, his sister-in-law and his nephew in the disaster. They feel they play only a minor role in Russia’s power game. »
In their application, the Netherlands accuses Russia of having violated Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of inhuman treatment) and 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights. man. “Russia did not cooperate effectively with the investigations into the crash [de l’avion] of flight MH17. Russia has not been able to present convincing evidence contradicting “its responsibility, insisted Babette Koopman.
Deliberate in several months
Unsurprisingly, Russia pleaded for the inadmissibility of the requests from the Netherlands and Ukraine and reaffirmed that it had no responsibility in the tragedy. “The authorities of the Russian Federation insist on their non-involvement in the crash,” said Mikhail Vinogradov, the representative of the Russian government.
After more than four hours of hearing, the 17 judges of the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, all of different nationalities (including one from each country concerned), retired to deliberate. Their decision will be made “at a later date”, said the president of the ECHR, Robert Spano, before adjourning the hearing. In general, the decisions of the Grand Chamber are not given for several months. This hearing took place while in the Netherlands, the verdict in the trial in absentia of four high-ranking officers of the pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, accused of shooting down the Boeing flight MH17 with a BUK surface-to-air missile, is not expected before the end of 2022. In December, Dutch prosecutors requested life imprisonment.
The conflict between Ukraine and Russia taken into account
In the other two applications considered by the ECHR on Wednesday, Kyiv accused Moscow of various human rights violations during the conflict in eastern Ukraine, as well as of having kidnapped three groups of children in 2014. , temporarily transferred to Russia. “Ukraine does not suffer from separate cases of Russian aggression and the massive violation of treaty rights associated with it, but from a consistent and long-term policy of the Russian Federation aimed at binding Ukraine to Russian interests,” declared the Ukrainian Minister of Justice, Denys Maliouska, present in Strasbourg.
He invited the judges of the ECHR to “take into account the current context” of the military maneuvers started by the Russians at the gates of Ukraine and in Crimea, annexed in 2014, sources of growing tension between Westerners and Moscow. In addition to the three applications examined together on Wednesday, the ECHR recalled that there were “four other inter-State applications and more than 8,500 individual applications pending before the Court and which concern the events in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and the Sea of Azov”. , in the south of this country.
