SCHIPHOL /The Netherlands/, September 22. /TASS/. The court ruling on the MH17 case (a Malaysian Airlines Boeing passenger plane that crashed in Ukraine in 2014) will be announced on November 17, judge Hendrik Steenhuis stated Thursday.
"The court plans to announce a verdict on the [MH17 crash] case on November 17, 2022, unless some unforeseen circumstances arise," he said. The court will rule with respect to "all four people," suspected of being involved in the incident: former DPR head Igor Girkin (Strelkov) and his subordinates Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Leonid Kharchenko, Steenhuis added.
The judge noted that the two sides partook in a hearing that lasted from June 9-10. At that time, Pulatov’s lawyers claimed that all charges were unfounded and called to dismiss them and issue an acquittal. They noted that the defense was able to refute all arguments made by the prosecution. In his final statement, presented as a video address, Pulatov insisted that he is completely innocent and has no connection to the plane crash. He expressed his hope that the Dutch court will "handle the political pressure" and prove its neutrality, and that Russia "will not be falsely accused of what has happened."
The Malaysian Airlines Boeing-777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing 298 passengers - citizens of 10 states. The Joint Investigative Team (JIT) announced in June 2019 that it has identified a group of four people suspected of being involved in the incident. All of them are being accused of delivering a Buk missile air defense system from Russia to Ukraine. Their trial began in the Netherlands on March 9, 2020. The case is being reviewed in absentia, with two Dutch lawyers representing Pulatov’s interests. The prosecution is demanding life sentences for all defendants, while lawyers representing the victims’ families are seeking compensation of 30,000-40,000 euro for their clients.
Russian officials have repeatedly expressed distrust in the results of the JIT, claiming that the prosecution’s arguments are baseless, and pointed out that Moscow’s own conclusions are being rejected during the investigation.