Four on trial accused of shooting down airliner

NETHERLANDS: Russians and Ukrainian deny attack which killed 298 people

Three Russians and a Ukrainian have gone on trial in the Netherlands, charged with multiple counts of murder for their alleged involvement in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which killed all 298 people aboard.

As expected, the suspects did not appear in the courtroom to answer charges.

It has been a day that has been a long time coming for family and friends of those killed on July 17 2014, when a Buk missile blew MH17 out of the sky above conflict-torn eastern Ukraine.

Five judges filed silently into a packed courtroom on the edge of Schiphol, the airport from which the flight took off, heading for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

A small number of family members of victims were in court, others watched proceedings via a video link in the central Netherlands.

There were 10 UK victims including John Alder and Liam Sweeney who were travelling to watch Newcastle United play.

Students Richard Mayne and Ben Pocock also lost their lives in the disaster.

Among those in court was Piet Ploeg, who lost his brother, Alex, his sister-inlaw and his nephew.

Mr Ploeg sat in court, listening attentively as the case started.

“We want justice for the fact that 298 people are murdered, and this court and the hearings (that) will start today will give us more clarity about what happened, why it happened and who was responsible for it,” he said.

Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said the criminal file in the case contains some 36,000 pages and “an enormous amount of multimedia files”.

Examining the evidence “will be a very painful and emotional period. There are many victims and of course because of that there are many next of kin”, Mr Steenhuis said.

Jon and Meryn O’brien flew all the way from Sydney to witness the start of the unprecedented Dutch trial, hoping for justice for their son Jack.

“The trial is important because the truth still matters,” Mr O’brien said on

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The trial is important because the truth still matters.

JON O’BRIEN, RELATIVE OF VICTIM.

the eve of the trial. “You shouldn’t be able to murder 298 people and for there to be no consequences, regardless of who you are.”

The O’briens were among families who arranged 298 white chairs in rows resembling aircraft seating outside the Russian Embassy in The Hague on Sunday to protest against what they see as Moscow’s deliberate attempts to obscure the truth about what happened.

After a painstaking innquiry, an international team of investigators and prosecutors last year named four suspects: Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.

Under Dutch law, the trial can continue even if the suspects do not show up.

Russia has denied involvement in the downing, even after prosecutors alleged that the Buk missile system which destroyed the plane was transported into Ukraine from the Russian 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade’s base in Kursk and the launching system was then returned to Russia.

Journalists crowd around members of the Ukrainian delegation outside the court where the trial, at Schiphol, opened yesterday.