Passenger flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew. Andrei Anghel, a 24-year-old Canadian from Ajax, Ont., was among the dead. At the time, the region was the scene of clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, a precursor to this year’s conflict. Russia invaded Ukraine in February and claims to have annexed Donetsk province, where plane wreckage and victims’ remains were once scattered across corn fields. “Only the most severe punishment is appropriate in retaliation for what the suspects did, which has caused so many victims and so many surviving relatives,” said presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis, reading a summary of the decision. The families of the victims stood weeping and wiping away tears in the courtroom as Steenhuis read the verdict. Steenhuis said the men enjoyed no immunity from prosecution as they were not members of the Russian armed services. “There is no reasonable doubt” that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile system, Steenhuis said. The suspects were convicted in absentia of Russians Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky, both former intelligence officers, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader. WATCH l Father of Canadian victim gives impact statement last year at trial:
Flight MH17 murder trial hears from victims’ families
The families of the victims testified Thursday in the murder trial of four men accused of having key roles in the Russian-backed separatist forces accused of firing the missile that downed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine. They are accused of arranging and transporting the BUK missile system, but not of personally launching it. All face sentences of up to life in prison. Oleg Pulatov, also a former Russian intelligence officer, was acquitted.
Russia declined to comment immediately
Victims’ representatives said the ruling would be an important milestone, although the suspects remain at large. All are believed to be in Russia, which will not extradite them. Ukraine’s president welcomed the ruling but said “those who ordered” the attack must now be brought to justice. Ria van der Steen, whose father and stepmother were passengers on the doomed flight, reacts after the Dutch court’s decision in Badhoevedorp, Holland. (Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters) “Punishment for all Russian atrocities — both present and past — will be inevitable,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted. Moscow denies any involvement or responsibility for the downing of MH17 and in 2014 also denied having any presence in Ukraine. At a briefing in Moscow on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman Ivan Nechaev told reporters that the government would consider the court’s findings. “We will study this decision because in all these matters every nuance matters,” he said. The four men were charged with shooting down a plane and murder in a trial conducted under Dutch law. Alternatively, they could be convicted of manslaughter charges if judges at The Hague District Court find the act was not premeditated. Wiretaps that were a key part of the evidence against the men suggested they believed they were targeting a Ukrainian fighter jet. Presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis, left, and colleague Dagmar Koster sit in the courtroom in Badhoevedorp, Netherlands, on Thursday. (Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters) Of the suspects, only Pulatov pleaded not guilty, through lawyers he hired to represent him. The rest were tried in absentia and none attended the trial. The victims of MH17, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came from 10 different countries. More than half were Dutch. The research was led by the Netherlands, with participation from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium.
