A Chinese court began hearings this Monday to determine the amount of compensation that should be paid to the families of the passengers who died on a Malaysia Airlines plane, which disappeared in 2014 on a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
The case remains a mystery after almost a decade.
The hearing, at the Chaoyang District Intermediate Court in Beijing, took place under a heavy police presence. No information has been published so far.
The police verified the identity of the journalists at the scene and placed them in an isolated area. Reporters were able to see family members enter the courtroom, but were not able to speak to them before the hearing began.
The plane’s whereabouts have fueled several theories, including mechanical failure, a hijacking attempt or a deliberate effort by those in the cockpit to destroy it, but little evidence has been found to show why the plane deviated from its route. original.
The Boeing 777, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, would have crashed in the Southern Ocean, south of India, but months of intense searches failed to find any sign of the crash site and only fragments of the plane appeared on the ground. coast. beaches of the region.
Among the passengers on board, 153 or 154, according to different reports, were citizens of China, which made the tragedy resonate especially in Beijing, where daily meetings and vigils were held for the missing.
Some relatives refused to believe that the plane was missing, arguing that the aircraft was taken to an unknown location and that their loved ones were still alive. Therefore, they refused to accept compensation from the airline.
Details of the legal action remain unclear but appear to be based on the allegation that the airline took no steps to locate the plane after it disappeared from air traffic control about 38 minutes after taking off over the South Sea. the night of March 8, 2014.
Family members say they expect the hearings to last until mid-December.
Given the mystery that continues to surround the case, it is not known what financial obligations the airline may have and no charges have been filed against the flight crew. However, relatives say they want compensation for a disaster that deprived them of their loved ones and put them in financial hardship.
China’s largely opaque legal system gives judges broad latitude to impose legal or financial sanctions when criminal sanctions cannot be imposed.
Source: TSF
