Britain calls for new international tribunal to deliver ‘justice’ for MH17

 
Ukrainian workers inspect the debris at the MH17 crash site
Joseph Watts24 July 2015

Britain today urged world leaders to back a new international tribunal able to prosecute anyone found responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine.

Foreign Office minister David Lidington said the tribunal was vital to secure justice for the 298 passengers on the jet, which western nations believe could have been shot down.His intervention comes days after Russia announced its opposition to the plan at the United Nations.

Mr Lidington said: “Over a year ago 298 people, including 10 British nationals, lost their lives on MH17, a tragedy felt around the world.

“It is fundamental that justice is delivered for all of those innocent people and that is why we strongly support an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible. We hope this will receive the widest possible international support. This is about securing justice and accountability for the victims.”

Moscow has said it opposes the tribunal proposal because the draft resolution setting it out classifies the tragedy as a threat to “international peace and security”. It has argued at the UN that the incident was a crime, posing no threat to international security and falling outside of the Security Council’s mandate.

Russian ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko today insisted that his country is “strongly committed to finding the truth and bringing those culpable to justice”.

But he argued that the tribunal plan proposed would be “a sure way to politicization of this entire matter”. Mr Yakovenko also claimed there had already been “numerous attempts to muddy water”.

He added: “That is indictment first with facts to follow. This approach will not only fail the victims of the tragedy and their relatives, but the international community at large.”

The Boeing-777 MH17 flight crashed in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on July 17 last year while travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

Western nations believe there is growing evidence that the plane was hit by a missile fired by Russian-backed rebels. Donetsk separatists blame Ukrainian government forces.

A technical investigation led by Dutch experts is under way to discover what caused the plane to crash, and there is also a multi-national criminal investigation.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in