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Plane crash that killed 298, two Russians and one Ukrainian sentenced to life in prison

2022-11-17 19:15:22Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Plane crash that killed 298, two Russians and one Ukrainian sentenced to life in
Plane crash that killed 298, two Russians and one Ukrainian sentenced to life in prison

A Dutch court has sentenced two Russians and a pro-Russian Ukrainian separatist to life in prison for the murder of 298 people who died in 2014 while traveling on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine. A Russian was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said evidence presented by two prosecutors in the two-year trial showed that the Boeing 777 traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by a missile fired by pro-Russian Ukrainian soldiers on July 17, 2014. The plane fell on a farmland and the bodies of the victims were scattered in a field of sunflowers.

Amid the geopolitical turmoil caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the court ruled that Moscow had full control over the separatist region of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, from where the attack began.

None of the defendants appeared at the trial, which began in March 2020. Prosecutors had sought life sentences for all four. Prosecutors and suspects have two weeks to appeal the decision.

Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said MH17 was brought down by a Byk missile, which was fired from a field in northern Ukraine.

Before the session, the tension between the family members was high.

"The truth came to light, that's the most important thing," said Anton Korre, who lost his son, niece and nephew when the plane crashed. Robbert van Heijningen, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and nephew, called the downing of the plane a barbaric act that he will never put behind him, despite the court's decision. "I have a stone in my heart", he said.

Hundreds of family members of the victims had traveled to hear the court's decision.

Dutch prosecutors say the missile was launched by the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, a unit of the Russian armed forces based in the Russian city of Kursk, and returned there after the downing of MH17.

The suspects are not accused of throwing the rocket, but of working together to get it to the field where it was launched. They are accused of crashing the plane and killing all the people on board.

The oldest defendant to be convicted was Igor Girkin, 51, a former colonel of the Security Services of the Russian Federation. At the time of the plane crash, he was Minister of Defense and commander of the armed forces in the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk, the region where the plane went down. It is reported that Girkin is currently also involved in Russia's war in Ukraine.

Also convicted were his subordinates, Sergey Dubinskiy and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian who prosecutors say was the commander of a pro-Russian rebel fighting unit and took orders directly from Dubinskiy.

Oleg Pulatovis was the only one of the suspects to be acquitted.


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