() — A Dutch court found three men guilty on Thursday of shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 and killing the passengers on board.
Two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist have been found guilty in absentia of mass murder for their role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that crashed over eastern Ukraine in 2014, the court ruled Thursday.
A fourth suspect, a Russian national, was acquitted by the court.
The court determined that “only the highest prison sentence would be appropriate” for former Russian intelligence officers Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Ukrainian separatist leader Leonid Kharchenko.
The court stated that “the consequences [de sus acciones] are so serious and the attitude of the defendants is so detestable that a mere sentence prescribed in time would not be enough”.
Igor Girkin, a former colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and Sergey Dubinskiy, an employee of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, were convicted along with Ukrainian separatist Leonid Kharchenko, who had no military record but is believed to have led a combat unit in Donetsk in July 2014.
All three were sentenced to life in prison, but since the sentences were handed down in absentia, it is likely that none of them will serve them.
A fourth suspect, Russian citizen Oleg Pulatov, a former soldier of Russia’s Spetsnaz-GRU special forces, was acquitted.
MH17 was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, when it was hit by a shell from pro-Russian rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine.
All 298 people on board died in the incident, including 15 crew members and 283 passengers from 17 countries. The downing of the plane occurred in the early phase of a conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.
The four suspects were tried in absentia for two years at the Schiphol Judicial Complex in Badhoevedorp, in the Netherlands. Only Pulatov was acquitted.
International investigators said the plane was hit by a Russian-sourced Buk missile fired from a village in eastern Ukraine at the time held by pro-Russian rebels. Prosecutors said the launcher belonged to Russia’s 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade and was returned to Russian territory the day after the attack. Moscow repeatedly denied any responsibility for the incident.
Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis, who delivered the verdict on Thursday, said the court found that the Russian-made Buk missile that brought down MH17 was fired from an agricultural field near the village of Pervomaiskyi, and that it was under control. of Russia at the time of the incident.
The court found that there was insufficient evidence to determine who launched the Buk missile and that those responsible probably believed they were firing at a military plane, not a passenger plane.
However, the court said the firing of the missile was a premeditated act intended to bring down an aircraft, and that it was “very clear” to those responsible that no one aboard any targeted aircraft would survive.
The conviction is an important step but not a final conclusion, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said after the verdict.
“The verdict (…) has been long awaited. It’s good to have reached this point. It is one more step in the search for truth and justice for the victims and their loved ones. But it is also another difficult and harrowing day for many of the family and friends of the 298 people who lost their lives on that terrible day of July 17, 2014,” he said in a statement.
Rutte cautioned that all parties have the right to appeal. “But to reiterate, an important step has been taken today and hopefully the families of the victims will feel it too.”
The Dutch court verdict comes nearly nine months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and weeks after Moscow tried to illegally annex four Ukrainian regions, including the area where prosecutors say the missile that downed the MH17 was fired eight years earlier.
Radina Gigova and James Frater contributed to this story.
