Four put on trial for murder over jet shot down in Ukraine
THREE Russians and a Ukrainian went 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 conflicttorn eastern Ukraine.
Five black-robed judges, three who will hear the case and two alternates, filed silently into a packed courtroom on the edge of Schiphol, the airport from which the doomed 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 from a conference centre 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.
Among those in court was Piet Ploeg, who lost his brother, Alex, his sister-in-law and his nephew.
Mr Ploeg sat in court, his hands folded in front of him, listening attentively as the case started.
“Next of kin want justice, simple as that,” he said.
“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.”
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.
After a painstaking investigation spanning years, 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.
More suspects could face charges as the investigations continue.