Three Russians, One Ukrainian Accused of 2014 Downing of Flight MH17
Three Russians and a Ukrainian will face murder charges for the July 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
The aircraft, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine, had all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board killed.
The trial is expected to start in the Netherlands next March, an investigation team said on Wednesday.
Peter Crozier, one of the international investigators, presented the latest findings in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, nearly five years after the crash that killed all passengers and crew.
The suspects are likely to be tried in absentia, however, as the Netherlands has said Russia has not cooperated with the investigation and is not expected to hand anyone over.
The Dutch-led international team tasked with assigning criminal responsibility for the plane’s destruction named the four suspects as Russians Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Igor Girkin, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.
It said international arrest warrants for the four suspects have been issued.
MH17 was shot out of the sky on July 17, 2014, over territory held by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as it was flying from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. Everyone on board was killed.
Most of those on board were Dutch. The joint investigation team formed by Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine found that the plane was shot down by a Russian missile.
In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin called MH17’s downing a “terrible tragedy”, but said that Moscow was not to blame and that there are other explanations for what happened.