SCHIPHOL /The Netherlands/, November 5. /TASS/. The defense of Russian citizen Oleg Pulatov, who is one of the four indicted people in the case of the Malaysian Boeing crash in Ukraine in 2014, is requesting that the prosecution clarifies whether the investigation asked China to share data from its satellite that could have captured the site of the tragedy, defense attorney Boudewijn van Eijck made the request at the hearing Thursday.
"The defense would like to ask why he says that a Chinese satellite might have images of the 17 of July 2014. And more importantly whether the JIT made any attempt to get such images from the Chinese Space Agency. Though, there were every reason to do that because the USA has still hasn’t handed over its satellite images. And as we said before, these images might have vital information," he said.
Before that, the defense attorneys spoke about some provisions of the report drafted after consultations with the European Space Agency (ESA) when the investigators asked experts to compare their conclusions with the data from European satellites and study 42 points on the map from where the missile that downed the passenger place was fired. The ESA carried out a probe and pointed to only one point from the supposed ones, however, the defense does not see how the Dutch investigators drafted the initial list of the potential launch in the first place.
"The reporting officer goes on to say that the investigation says that no commercial or civilian satellites provided data regarding the areas of interest on the 17 of July 2014. It goes on, however, to say a possible exception to this is a satellite operated by the Chinese Space Agency. But the Chinese Space Agency only shares this information with China," the attorney continued, saying that the defense would like to ask the reporting officer about the references made in his report that seemingly are not based on the Dutch investigators’ report."
The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, conducting flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on July 17, 2014, in Donetsk Region of Ukraine, killing 298 people from 10 states. A Joint Investigative Team (JIT) was created to investigate the crash, including representatives of Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine. In June 2019, experts claimed that they have identified a group of four people, suspected of involvement in the tragedy. It includes former Donetsk People’s Republic militia leader Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov; and his subordinates: Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Leonid Kharchenko. According to the investigation, the former three are Russian nationals, and the latter is a Ukrainian national. The court hearings against the four men began on March 9. Pulatov is the only one represented by a group of lawyers, while the remaining three are tried in absentia. The four are accused of delivering a Buk air defense system from Russia to Ukraine.
Russian officials repeatedly doubted the JIT findings, pointing out baselessness of the plaintiffs’ arguments and unwillingness to use conclusions of the Russian side during the investigation.