MH17 trial gets under way
RELATIVES sat listening with bowed heads and eyes closed as the names of all 298 victims of a missile strike on a Malaysian airliner were read out in a Dutch court yesterday, as the murder trial of four fugitive defendants began.
Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was hit by a surface-to-air missile on July 17, 2014, while flying over Ukrainian territory held by pro-Russian rebels fighting government forces.
None of the accused in the disaster, three Russians and a Ukrainian, were present in the courtroom and all four are believed to be in Russia.
Only one sent a defence lawyer. Judges ruled that the men had waived their rights to attend and said proceedings would continue without them. The mood in the courtroom was sombre as prosecutor Dedy Woei-a-Tsoi read out the names of those who died.
“The silence in this court during the reading of all the names of the victims makes it (MH17 disaster) clear once again, and that means a moment of silence was fitting,” Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said.
Prosecutors say the suspects helped supply the Russian missile system that downed the plane. Russian authorities have consistently denied any involvement in the missile strike. The four defendants face preliminary charges of the murder of 298 people and of causing the aircraft to crash, resulting in the death of all aboard. “Many people have long waited for this day.”
The defendants – Russians Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Igor Girkin, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko – held senior posts in the pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine in 2014, according to prosecutors.
“It is very important for us because nobody had expected there would be a trial at all,” said Anton Kotti, who lost three family members in the disaster.
“We hope the judge gets so much evidence that he can only come to one conclusion: ‘guilty’.” Sabine ten Doesschate, a lawyer for defendant Platov, told the panel of three judges that her client “had nothing to do with the crash... He is not responsible, not in any way, not with any participation, not in any capacity.”
A Dutch-led international Joint Investigation team spent years collecting evidence before issuing arrest warrants for the four suspects last year. If convicted, the four men could face sentences of up to life in prison.
However, Russia does not extradite its citizens, and the Kremlin has questioned the legitimacy of the international investigation.
Prosecutor Ward Ferdinandusse told the court that the investigation was complicated by ongoing fighting at the crash site in Ukraine and “active obstruction” by Russian authorities.
Russia has denied such accusations, and President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has said the Kremlin will wait to see how the trial pans out before commenting.