ECHR finds Russia responsible for human rights violations in MH17 case
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has delivered its judgment in the interstate case "Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia," finding multiple violations of human rights committed by the Russian Federation.
This was reported by Censor.NET, citing Ukrinform.
President of the ECHR, Síofra O’Leary, announced that the case concerning the downing of flight MH17 involved violations of Articles 2 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Court also unanimously held that the suffering of the relatives of MH17 victims falls within the scope of Article 3 of the Convention (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment). In other applications, the Court found violations of the Convention, including Articles 2–5, 8–11, 13, and 14 – the right to life, prohibition of torture, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of conscience, and several other fundamental rights.
The case consolidates four applications and concerns events in eastern Ukraine involving pro-Russian separatists that began in 2014, including the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, as well as the Russian military invasion of Ukrainian territory in 2022.
As a reminder, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, a Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over the temporarily occupied part of Donetsk region on 17 July 2014. All 298 people on board were killed.
On 17 November 2022, a court in The Hague found Russian militant Igor Girkin (Strelkov), Russian GRU General Sergey Dubinsky, and Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko guilty of downing flight MH17 and murdering 298 individuals. They were sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to pay €16 million in compensation.
