{"id":326648,"date":"2022-11-18T16:10:31","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T06:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=326648"},"modified":"2022-11-18T16:31:47","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T06:31:47","slug":"mh17-tragedy-trio-found-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2022\/11\/18\/mh17-tragedy-trio-found-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"MH17 Tragedy: Trio Found Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sr Philomene Tiernan … on board Malaysian flight
(Photo: Julia Charles)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

November 18, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist have been found guilty of the murder of \u00a0298 people on board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, including the sister of a former Murgon publican.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Boeing 777 was on a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down on July 17, 2014.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, a Dutch court sentenced Russian nationals Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko to life imprisonment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

The four men were part of a pro-Russia separatist movement fighting in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The 32-month trial began in March 2020.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sr Philomene was born in Murgon on June 17, 1937.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On her seventh birthday, June 17, 1944, her uncle Patrick Tiernan \u2013 a crewman on board a Halifax bomber \u2013 was killed during a raid on the Ruhr, part of the allied air offensive against strategic German infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Sr Phil attended St Joseph\u2019s Catholic School at Murgon and then was a boarder at Stuartholme School in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

She had been on a trip of a lifetime when her life was cut short by the ground-to-air missile.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Patrick lost his life when his aircraft was shot down.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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The South Burnett delegation which attended the commemorations at Dodewaard … Sr Philomene travelled from Sydney to join other Tiernan family members at the event<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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