Daily Times

Canada, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine have taken Iran to the International Court of Justice to seek damages for families of passengers on a jetliner downed by Tehran in 2020, the tribunal said Wednesday.

The case at the UN’s top court says Iran “violated a series of obligations” under a convention on civil aviation by shooting down Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 after take-off from Tehran.

All 176 people on board were killed. Three days after the January 8, 2020 crash, Iran admitted that its military had targeted the Kyiv-bound Boeing 737-800 plane by mistake.

Canada, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine — which had a number of citizens on board — said last month they would go to the Hague-based court to seek reparations on behalf of victims’ families.

Their filing at the tribunal says Iran breached a 1971 multilateral treaty on threats to civil aviation, and that attempts to seek binding arbitration with Iran had failed.

They asked the court to “order full reparation for all injury caused” and to make Iran pay “full compensation to the applicants for the material and moral damages suffered by the victims and their families”.

Iran should also return the belongings of the victims and publicly acknowledge its “internationally wrongful acts”.

In June, Iran took Canada to the ICJ accusing Ottawa of allowing victims of alleged terror attacks to claim damages from Tehran.

Tehran’s case claims that Ottawa, which listed the Islamic Republic as a sponsor of terrorism in 2012, had violated Iran’s state immunity.