The Russians Igor Guirkin and Sergei Dubinsky and the Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were “convicted” of intentional murder, while the Russian Oleg Pulatov was acquitted, according to the sentence handed down by Judge Hendrik Steenhuis.
The court sentenced the three men, tried in their absence, to life imprisonment, though it is unclear whether they will ever serve their sentences. The four defendants are free and none of them attended the announcement of the sentence, as well as the rest of the hearings of the trial, which lasted two and a half years.
Hopefully, the United States hailed the ruling as “an important step in ongoing efforts to bring justice to the 298 people who lost their lives on July 17, 2014,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. The verdict “reflects the firm commitment of the Netherlands to establish the truth and seek accountability in this case,” he added.
In response, Russia charged that the determination was motivated by political considerations.
“The development and conclusion of the judicial process show that the sentence was due to political issues,” criticized the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement, in which it stated that the trial “has every chance of becoming one of the most scandalous events in the history of judicial processes”.
“The decision of the court in The Hague is important,” stressed, for his part, the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelensky. “The punishment of all Russian atrocities, both past and present, will be inevitable,” he added.
History
The impact occurred when the commercial aircraft was flying over the airspace of Donbas, then controlled by pro-Russian separatists and which currently represents the area where the most intense fighting in the war in Ukraine takes place.
Piet Ploeg, president of the MH17 Foundation, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and a nephew in the tragic incident, said he hoped the sentence would help the families of the victims heal their injuries.
“I don’t think they will close completely, but I really hope that this day will help the relatives to move forward in their lives,” he said, in statements outside the courtroom, about a sentence that put an end to the long road of the relatives for justice.
Girkin, Dubinski, Kharchenko and Pulatov were part of the separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, supported by Moscow.
The judges considered that the three convicted men were responsible for having deployed BUK missiles from a military base in Russia and for having installed them in the place from where they were launched, although they were not the ones who pressed the button.
“There are numerous pieces of evidence that allow us to reach this conclusion,” such as “a butterfly-shaped fragment found on the body of a crew member,” he explained.
The court rejected the alternative hypothesis defended by the defense lawyer that a Ukrainian fighter was involved in the downing of the plane.
responsibilities
The judges also ensured that the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic was then “under the control of the Russian Federation”. Moscow always denied any involvement in this tragedy.
During the events, Girkin, 51, was a former Russian spy who was appointed as the Defense Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic and was in contact with Moscow to get help with the missile system.
Dubinski, 60, also linked to the Russian intelligence services, was in charge of the separatists’ military intelligence services and allegedly gave the order to activate the missiles.
Pulatov and Kharchenko were his subordinates and, according to the prosecution, were in charge of taking the missiles to the launch site.
The victims came from ten different countries (none of them Spanish-speaking) and among them were 196 Dutch, 43 Malaysian and 38 Australian.
“If they are guilty, the international community should persecute them,” said Evert van Zijtveld, who lost his 19-year-old daughter Frederique, 18-year-old son Robert-Jan and his in-laws.
“I cannot forgive them,” he added in statements before the announcement of the sentence.
Source: Ambito
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