The Pursuit of Justice for MH17 Victims and their Families Continues

That the Parliament marks with sadness the sixth anniversary of the unprovoked shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by what it believes was a Russian army-owned Buk surface-to-air missile from a farm near Pervomaisk, an area that was under control of pro-Russian forces, while travelling above Kursk from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on 17 July 2014, resulting in 298 deaths, including 15 crew members and 80 children; welcomes the Dutch Government’s announcement on 10 July 2020 to bring Russia before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for its role in the downing of Flight MH17, to which end it will submit an inter-State application; notes that the contents of the application will also be incorporated into the Netherlands’ intervention in the individual applications submitted by the victims’ next of kin against Russia to the ECtHR, ensuring maximum support to these individual cases; recognises that, by submitting this inter-State application, the Netherlands stands not only by Dutch victims and families but by all 298 MH17 victims, of 17 different nationalities, and their next of kin; stands with the Netherlands in its continued pursuit of truth, justice and accountability; urges the Russian Federation once again to accept responsibility for what it considers a heinous act of terrorism and to help secure justice for the victims and their families, and expresses Scotland’s continuing sympathy to everyone whose lives have been impacted by what it considers this senseless act of mass murder.