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Dutch publications about MH17 plane crash ‘created out of thin air’ — Russian envoy

According to Alexander Shulgin, the local parliament deputies are beginning to rage over some newspaper publications

MOSCOW, November 2. / TASS /. Russian Ambassador to the Netherlands, Permanent Representative to the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) Alexander Shulgin castigated the Dutch publications about threats to the lawyers of the families of those killed in the 2014 MH17 plane crash.

"Here is a recent example. According to the Dutch press, someone threatened the lawyers of the families of those killed as a result of the Malaysian Boeing crash. Allegedly, some people, wearing sunglasses, were watching these lawyers and following them, although they do not pose any physical threat or take any action. This statement is completely groundless, in my opinion, created out of a thin air," the Russian diplomat stated at an online briefing.

According to Shulgin, the local parliament deputies are beginning to rage over some newspaper publications. "One of the deputies urgently demands to summon the Russian envoy <…>. Another one claims that some people wearing sunglasses are chasing the lawyers of the participants in the trial on the MH17 plane crash, while we are remaining idle. We need to impose new sanctions as soon as possible," the Russian envoy insisted.

A passenger Boeing-777 plane of Malaysia Airlines (flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur) was shot down over the Donetsk Region of Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing 298 people on board - citizens of ten states. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in June 2019 said it had identified a group of four suspects involved in the incident. Former chief of the Donetsk People's Republic's militia, Igor Girkin (Strelkov) and his subordinates: Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Leonid Kharchenko. Their trial began in the Netherlands on March 9, 2020. The four are accused of allegedly delivering a BUK anti-aircraft missile system to Ukraine from Russia. Russian officials have repeatedly expressed distrust towards the JIT's conclusions, which carried out a criminal investigation of the MH17 case and pointed to the groundlessness of the arguments presented by the prosecution and the reluctance to use Moscow's conclusions in conducting the investigation.

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