Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and Britain have asked the International Court of Justice to begin proceedings against Iran over the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in 2020 that killed all 176 people on board, according to legal filings that emerged Wednesday.
The International Court of Justice announced Wednesday that Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ukraine are suing Iran before it to seek compensation for the families of the passengers of the Ukrainian airliner.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down the Ukraine International Airlines plane on January 8, 2020, shortly after taking off from Tehran airport, in an incident Iranian officials described at the time as a "catastrophic mistake."
Three days after the incident on January 3, 8, Iran admitted that it had shot down the Boeing 2020-737 "by mistake."
In their application to the court, also known as the international court, the four countries said Iran had violated "a series of obligations" under the 1971 Montreal Convention on the Safety and Security of Civilian Air Travel.
Iran has failed to take all practical measures to prevent the tragedy of flight BS752 and has failed to conduct a fair, transparent and fair criminal investigation and prosecution.
Most of the victims of the incident belonged to the four countries that set up a coordination group aimed at holding Iran accountable.
Iran says its forces shot down the plane by mistake at a time when tensions between Tehran and Washington were high. A final report released in 2021 attributed the incident to a malfunction in radar and an error on the part of air defenses.
Canada said at the time that the report "did not attempt to answer categorical questions about the truth of what happened", and Ukraine described it as a ludicrous attempt by Iranian authorities to cover up the true causes of the crash, which it said it suspected was deliberate.
Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom announced last month that they would sue Iran at the International Court of Justice to seek compensation for the victims' families.
They asked the court to "order full compensation for all harm suffered" and to have Iran pay "full compensation to applicants for material and moral damage caused to victims and their families."
According to these countries, Iran must also return the victims' property and publicly acknowledge its "internationally wrongful acts."
Iran decided in June to sue Canada in the UN's highest court because it allowed victims of "terrorist attacks" to seek compensation in its courts.
Tehran's complaint says Ottawa, which listed the Islamic Republic as a state sponsor of terrorism in 2012, violated its state immunity.