The trial relating to the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014 has begun. The plane, a Boeing 777, was brought down by a Buk anti-aircraft missile, killing all 193 passengers and crew on board, the majority Dutch nationals, but also passengers from Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia and Britain. The plane was brought down while flying over an area of Eastern Ukraine which, at the time, was held by pro-Russian rebels and it is alleged the Buk missile originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation.
It is believed that the armed vehicle had been transported from Russia into the region in question on the day of the crash, and then driven back to Russia shortly afterwards. While the four men on trial are not believed to have been physically responsible for the launch of the missile which downed the plane, Dutch prosecutors have alleged that four men had responsibility for the missile launch: Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov, and the Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko. All were senior commanders fighting Ukrainian forces in the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic. The prosecutor Ward Ferdinandusse said the four defendants had “noted with delight” that a plane had been shot down. “We do not think that these defendants pressed the button that launched the Buk missile,” he said. “However we do think that they played a significant coordinating role in the transportation and positioning of the Buk-Telar and its removal back to Russia, making them so closely involved that they can be held responsible under criminal law for the downing of flight MH17.”
None of the defendants will be present at the trial as Russia does not permit extradition of its nationals. The trial is expected to last many months and already case file documentation submitted extends to over 36,000 pages.
