Iran avoids compensating Ukrainian plane victims under pretext of dual nationality

Nora Bandari

After the Iranian regime admitted responsibility for the downing of the Ukrainian plane, which killed 176 people of different nationalities as a result of a missile that was “mistakenly” fired from an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base on January 8, the regime must pay compensation to the victims of the accident, as determined by international laws.

These high-value compensations have prompted the mullah regime to search for any loophole that would enable it to escape its commitment, claiming that the plane was carrying dual nationals who are Iranian citizens.

Circumvention

According to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi in a press conference broadcast on Tuesday, January 20, Tehran has informed the Canadian government that it considers the dual nationals who were killed in the plane crash Iranian citizens and will treat them accordingly.

Mousavi’s comment came after Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced on January 15 his rejection of the Iranian position regarding dual citizenship, describing it as “nonsense.” In addition, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Iran on January 19 to provide speedy compensation for the families of the victims, estimated at $19,100 per family for every Canadian or permanent resident of Canada who was a victim of the plane crash.

The Iranian government having to pay these compensation sums comes at a cost in light of the economic crisis the country is suffering from as a result of the US sanctions imposed on it.

International agreements

According to international laws, the families of the plane victims must fight a legal battle to obtain the required compensation, which requires the support of their governments. According to the 1999 Montreal Agreement, many families may directly receive compensation equivalent to $170,000 from Ukraine International Airlines.

Although Iran is not a member of the Montreal Agreement, it is bound by the 1929 Warsaw Treaty, and this treaty works to unify the rules for paying compensation to victims of crashes, with the aim of ensuring that companies quickly pay these compensations to the families of the victims without resorting to long and complex legal procedures. Its provisions state that the airline will pay $8,300 to the family of each victim of a plane crash, whether or not an agreement has been reached with the families of the victims or not, although there is no maximum amount of compensation.

Nationalities of the victims

Five countries that lost citizens in the Ukrainian plane crash, namely Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan and Britain, issued a joint statement after a meeting of officials in London on January 16, demanding that Iran pay compensation to the families of the victims and conduct a comprehensive, independent and transparent international investigation into the accident. They even requested Tehran to conduct the process of identifying victims with dignity and transparency while respecting the wishes of families regarding repatriation.

The nationalities of the victims include 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, 4 Afghans, 3 Germans, and 3 Britons. The governments of each of these countries put a financial value as compensation for the victims, and the British newspaper the Times reported that the compensation varies from one country to another. The compensation is estimated at $4.5 million per person in the United States, $2.5 million per person in Brazil, $1.6 million per person in Europe, and $500,000 per person in China.

With the exception of the Iranians, some legal analysts have reported that Iran is obligated to pay an approximate amount of $107 million to Canadians and $44 million to Europeans, plus a few million dollars for the four Afghans.

Iranian perversity

Muhammad Sadiq Ismail, director of the Arab Center for Political Studies, explained that the reasons for the shifts in the Iranian position include Iran’s recognition that its responsibility for the Ukrainian plane crash forces it to pay compensation to the families of the victims, while at the same time the United States will enter the crisis and again announce the imposition of new sanctions on Iran. This caused Tehran to take a counter position and practice intransigence, declaring that it refuses to pay compensation for some of the victims.

Ismail added in a special statement to the Reference that Iranian perversity will not bear fruit, but will lead to the imposition of more international political and economic sanctions on the Iranian regime, including the imposition of economic sanctions by the International Civil Aviation Authority on Iran and the declaration of states not to fly over Iranian airspace due to the lack of safety.