The family of the person killed in the Malaysian Boeing accused Sberbank and VTB of sponsoring terrorism

The family of the person killed in the Malaysia Airlines plane crash in Donbass filed a lawsuit in Manhattan court against MoneyGram, Western Union, Sberbank and VTB, writes Vedomosti, which has reviewed the document. The plaintiffs believe that in 2014 the companies helped obtain funding for the DPR; their representatives deny the accusation.

Plaintiffs. The deceased citizen of the United States and the Netherlands, whose family filed a lawsuit, is Quinn Lucas Schansmann. He was one of the 298 people who were on board the Boeing 777 that was shot down in the summer of 2014. The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and, according to investigators, was shot down by a Russian military Buk anti-aircraft missile system.

The essence of the claims. Lawyers for the family of the deceased argue that the actions of the DPR can be considered terrorist, and the financial organizations listed in the lawsuit actually helped sponsor terrorism.

• The lawsuit states that “through numerous websites, the DNR and its representatives shamelessly advertised ways in which funds could be donated to support their efforts.” In particular, money could be sent to accounts in Sberbank and VTB or cards issued by them.
• The plaintiffs believe that with the help of these banks, pro-Russian separatists received funds to buy weapons, including the missile that shot down MH17.
• VTB and Western Union called the accusations false and stated that they never participated in the financing of the DPR. MoneyGram and Sberbank did not respond to journalists’ requests.

Question. The US State Department did not include the DPR on its list of terrorist organizations. It is still unclear whether the court recognizes the activities of the DPR as terrorist or the conflict in Donbass as military. The law on the basis of which the claim was filed does not apply in the case of “actions of war”.

Story. A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 crashed in eastern Ukraine in the summer of 2014. There were 298 people on board, all of them died.

• The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) said in 2016 that MH17 was believed to have been shot down by a Buk missile in DPR territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists, and that the missile itself was formerly owned by Russian forces. This version of the crash was later confirmed by the Bellingcat group, which tracked the movements of SUVs and minivans accompanying the Buk, which allegedly shot down the Malaysian Boeing.
• Russia denies involvement in the crash of the Malaysian Boeing.
• At the beginning of April, the ECHR already handed over to Russia two class action lawsuits from the families of those killed in the tragedy. The applicants accuse Russia of sponsoring separatists in the DPR and that the state failed to fulfill its obligations to investigate the causes of the disaster and bring those responsible to justice, and also refused to cooperate with the investigations of the Dutch Safety Council and the JIT.