Years After Iranian Missiles Downed a Passenger Jet, a Suit Seeks Answers

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

45% : For the family members, who have long complained that the case was being ignored, the filing meant a symbolic first day in court; or, rather, in the highest judicial forum of the United Nations, based in The Hague, which settles disputes between nations and is not a criminal court.
39% : The plane's downing on Jan. 8, 2020, came amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States after the killing of the top Iranian security commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, by a U.S. drone strike at the Baghdad airport.
38% : On a clear January morning in 2020, Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 was struck by two Iranian missiles just three minutes after leaving an airport in Tehran, killing all 176 passengers.
38% : The inquiry notes that Tehran took seven months to hand over the flight data recorders, or black boxes, and that even then 16 minutes were missing.
36% : At first, Iran insisted that the plane suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure.
35% : On Wednesday, four of the countries whose citizens perished in the disaster filed suit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, requesting Iran provide a full account, to acknowledge its responsibility and pay "full compensation" for the material and moral damages.
31% : Hours before the plane was shot down, Iran fired missiles at two U.S. military bases in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of General Suleimani.
28% : After days of denials, Iranian officials acknowledged that the downing was the result of "human error," prompting angry protests across Iran.
20% : The four parties to the suit -- Britain, Canada, Sweden and Ukraine -- contend that Iran has failed "to conduct an impartial, transparent and fair criminal investigation" but instead has "withheld or destroyed evidence" and "threatened and harassed the families of the victims."Iran had no immediate response to the lawsuit.

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