MH17 Tragedy: Trio Found Guilty

Sr Philomene Tiernan … on board Malaysian flight
(Photo: Julia Charles)

November 18, 2022

Two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist have been found guilty of the murder of 298 people on board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, including the sister of a former Murgon publican.

Sr Philomene Tiernan, sister of the late Dermot Tiernan, was one of 38 Australians on the doomed flight, shot down by a Russian-supplied surface-to-air Buk missile more than eight years ago.

The Boeing 777 was on a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down on July 17, 2014.

On Thursday, a Dutch court sentenced Russian nationals Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko to life imprisonment.

The men did not appear in court, and it is unlikely they will ever face jail as they are believed to be living in Russia.

A fourth man, Russian Oleg Pulatov, was found not guilty due to lack of evidence about his role in firing the missile.

The four men were part of a pro-Russia separatist movement fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The 32-month trial began in March 2020.

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Sr Philomene was born in Murgon on June 17, 1937.

On her seventh birthday, June 17, 1944, her uncle Patrick Tiernan – a crewman on board a Halifax bomber – was killed during a raid on the Ruhr, part of the allied air offensive against strategic German infrastructure.

Sr Phil attended St Joseph’s Catholic School at Murgon and then was a boarder at Stuartholme School in Brisbane.

Deciding to become a nun, she entered the Society of the Sacred Heart on August 9, 1959, and took her final vows on July 21, 1965.

Sr Phil taught at both Stuartholme and then Kincoppal Rose Bay in Sydney, where she worked for more than 30 years. She also served as Provincial of the order from 1993-1999.

She had been on a trip of a lifetime when her life was cut short by the ground-to-air missile.

Sr Phil had flown to Europe – as had a group of South Burnett citizens accompanied by then-Mayor Wayne Kratzmann – to take part in commemorations at Dodewaard to mark the anniversary of the death of former Murgon resident Patrick Tiernan during World War II.

Ironically, Patrick lost his life when his aircraft was shot down.

After attending the commemorations in the Netherlands, Sr Phil took a sabbatical, visiting Ireland, England and France before boarding the doomed flight in the Netherlands to return home.