The Dutch Public Prosecution Service has summoned four suspects accused of shooting down the Malaysian MH17 aircraft to appear before a Dutch court. On Monday, March 9, the extensive criminal trial will begin in the extra-secure courtroom at the courthouse located at Schiphol Airport.
The text of the formal indictment will only be revealed during the hearing itself. The Public Prosecution Service announced last year that the group is accused of downing flight MH17 of Malaysian Airlines and the murder of all 298 people on board. The plane was shot down on June 17, 2014, over eastern Ukraine with a Russian BUK missile. Pro-Russian separatists, supported by Russia, were fighting the Ukrainian government forces in that area.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine on July 17, 2014. The Joint Investigation Team determined that the aircraft was brought down by a BUK missile originating from the Russian military. According to the prosecution, the suspects standing trial in March contributed, among other things, to the transportation of the missile.
The four suspects are Oleg Pulatov, Sergei Dubinsky, Igor Girkin, and Leonid Kharchenko; the first three are Russians, Kharchenko is Ukrainian. It is expected that none of them will comply with the summons to appear at the hearing.
One of the suspects, Girkin, recently told Russian reporters that he has not received any summons from the Netherlands, that he does not recognize the legal process in the Netherlands, and therefore will not send a lawyer to his trial in the Netherlands.
Igor Girkin is a former officer of the Russian military intelligence service GRU and at the time of the rebellion in eastern Ukraine was the Minister of Defense of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. He was thus one of the highest-ranking Russian commanders involved in the war, including the deployment of the BUK missile as air defense.
The other Russian suspect, Oleg Pulatov, is represented at the trial by two Dutch lawyers, who themselves are accompanied by a Russian lawyer in Moscow. According to the current plan, the trial will continue well into 2021.
For Moscow, it is out of the question to have the Russian MH17 suspects serve their sentences in Russia. The Russian government, as the situation stands, is unwilling to cooperate in any way with the serving of any potential sentences because Russia considers the earlier JIT investigation into the disaster "unfair."
The fourth suspect standing trial for the disaster holds Ukrainian nationality. His whereabouts are unclear. There was also initially a legal issue here because Ukraine, like Russia, does not extradite its own citizens. However, it has been previously agreed with Ukraine that a Ukrainian suspect, if convicted by a Dutch court, will serve their sentence in Ukraine.