Fifth court hearing in MH17 trial starts in the Netherlands

The fifth court hearing in the MH17 trial has begun at the Schiphol Judicial Complex in the Netherlands, an Ukrinform correspondent in The Hague reports.

Judges and Dutch prosecutors sit in the courtroom behind a transparent partition due to the coronavirus epidemic. Lawyers and relatives of the victims are sitting opposite them at a distance of 1.5 meters from each other.

The lawyers of suspect Pulatov, who expressed a desire to participate in the trial, are also present in the courtroom. Pulatov's interests are represented by lawyers Sabine Ten Doesschate and Boudewijn van Eijck from the Sjöcrona Van Stigt Dutch law firm.

As reported, due to the spread of coronavirus, the number of people who can be in courtroom is limited.

The court hearing can be followed live.

The hearings are scheduled from Monday, June 8, till Friday, July 3, 2020, but it is so far unknown whether the hearings will take place on a daily basis. Hearings may be postponed or canceled due to coronavirus.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over conflict-hit Donbas in July 2014. There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board. All of them died. The JIT reported that the plane had been shot down from a Buk missile system that belongs to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Kursk.

On June 19, 2019, the international Joint Investigation Team named four suspects believed to be involved in the transportation and combat use of the Buk missile system, from which MH17 flight had been downed. Three of them are Russians: Igor Girkin (Strelkov), former colonel in Russia's FSB intelligence service and former so-called defense minister of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”; Sergey Dubinskiy, general (at the time of downing – colonel) of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and head of the so-called “Main Intelligence Directorate of the Donetsk People’s Republic”; Oleg Pulatov, lieutenant colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The fourth suspect is Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian civilian, who fought on the side of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic.”

Photo courtesy of Iryna Drabok

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