(London) Canada, Ukraine, Sweden and the United Kingdom, united in a coalition for the victims of the 2020 Ukrainian plane crash shot down in Iran, on Tuesday denounced the “sham trials” that took place in Iran. led to the conviction of ten Iranian soldiers.
“The sham trials that took place in Tehran must not distract the world from Iran’s failure to live up to its international obligations and take responsibility for its actions,” the four countries criticized in a joint statement.
On Sunday, ten Iranian soldiers were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to 10 years for their role in the crash of the Ukrainian Boeing shot down near Tehran in January 20201.
The crash, caused by two missiles launched by Iran’s armed forces at the time on high alert for fear of a US attack, claimed the lives of 176 people, mostly Iranians and Canadians, many of them binationals, as well as eleven Ukrainians.
“Neither the trials nor the verdicts announced this week bring truth and justice to the families of the victims”, regrets the coalition, which judges that Iranian justice has “lacked the necessary impartiality and transparency” in this case.
“The Association of Victims’ Families does not recognize the courts of the Islamic regime as legitimate courts”, also reacted on Twitter on Monday this association of relatives of the victims after the announcement of the convictions.
Last December, the Crash Victims Coalition called for Tehran to submit to binding arbitration to “hold Iran accountable” for the crash.
Canada, Ukraine, Sweden and the United Kingdom had relied on the 1971 Montreal Convention, which regulates offenses against civil aviation, to request this arbitration.
In early 2022, Iran said it had begun compensating some of the victims’ families by paying each “a sum of $150,000”, promising to compensate the others.