The Dutch court will deliver its verdict on November 17 in the trial of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 which flew over eastern Ukraine in 2014, the court announced on Monday in The Hague.
The Dutch court will deliver its verdict on November 17 in the trial of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 which flew over eastern Ukraine in 2014, the court announced on Monday in The Hague. On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed while flying over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people.
An international team of investigators say the aircraft was shot down over the conflict zone with pro-Russian separatists by a missile brought in from a Russian military base, likely to fight against Ukrainian forces. Moscow has always denied any involvement. The trial, which started in March 2020, was held under high security in the Netherlands, near Amsterdam, because the Boeing 777 was connecting Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and most of the victims are Dutch.
Prosecutors have asked for life
The judges chose “November 17, 2022 (…) in the criminal trial of MH17,” the court said in a statement. The decision “will take part of the day and will probably take place in the afternoon”. Four men, three Russians Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinski and Oleg Pulatov, and a Ukrainian, Leonid Kharchenko, all senior pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, are accused of shooting down flight MH17 with a missile ground to air.
Prosecutors in December sought life sentences for the four accused men, saying they played a pivotal role in securing the Buk missile system, which was likely intended to shoot down a Ukrainian warplane. The four defendants, who claim their innocence, refused to appear in person and were tried in absentia. Only Mr. Poulatov had legal representation. For his advice, the judges did not show that a Buk missile, supplied by Russia, had shot down the Boeing 777 airliner, saying that there were “gaps” in the file. They said prosecutors could not prove their theory based on phone conversations, footage and witness statements that it was indeed the missile that caused the crash of MH17. They thus pleaded for the acquittal of their client.