SCHIPHOL /the Netherlands/, February 8. /TASS/. The Hague District Court has satisfied the defense team’s request to attach reports prepared by Russia’s Almaz-Antey arms industry company to the case of Malaysia’s MH17 Boeing crash in Ukraine in 2014, presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis delivered the ruling Monday.
According to him, the court "allows attaching the reports" of Almaz-Antey published in 2015-2016 to the case. These documents particularly compare the damage sustained by the plane with the result of field tests carried out using the missile which the investigation believes was used to down the plane.
Defense attorneys of Oleg Pulatov, one of four defendants in the case, earlier requested to attach these reports to the case file. Steenhuis added that the reports will also be added to the cases of the other three defendants despite the fact that the request was only made by Pulatov’s defense team.
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 have repeatedly doubted the JIT findings, pointing out baselessness of the plaintiffs’ arguments and unwillingness to use conclusions of the Russian side during the investigation.