News Desk
AMSTERDAM: A court in the Netherlands has sentenced three men to life imprisonment and acquitted one person for shooting down a passenger airliner MH 17 of Malaysia over eastern Ukraine in 2014, and killing all the 298 people onboard.
The two men who were granted life sentences are Russian citizens and one is a Ukrainian citizen. The court also released one Russian national in the absentia of the accused persons.
The missile attack and shooting down of the MH 17 Malaysian passenger jet was one of the notorious war crimes in 2014 before the atrocities and crimes became a routine activity in Ukraine.
Malaysian airliner MH 17 was boarding 298 people, including 80 children and 15 crew members, heading towards Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In this flight of 298 passengers, people from the Netherlands, Malaysia, United Kingdom, and Australia were traveling.
The Boeing 777 Jet, named MH 17 flight number, was flying around 1000 feet above the restricted airspace of Ukraine. At the time, Russia was in the early stage of beginning its invasion of Ukraine, and the targeted area of Ukraine felt low-level conflict zone in 2014.
After the shooting down of MH 17, Ukraine closed its airspace for lower altitude flights. Fighting groups had shot down multiple military aircraft after the shooting of MH-17 Malaysia.
Russian Involvement in the Downing of MH 17 of Malaysia
Russia officially denied her involvement in shooting down the MH-17 passenger jet. It suggested alternative theories like ‘involvement of Ukraine fighter jets in shooting down of MH 17’ or ‘Ukrainian government behind this heinous crime’ and presented weak proof to support her claims.
Russia built her theories on the material recovered by the team of open international investigators at the scene, but the Netherlands’ court rejected this evidence.
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International investigators concluded that MH 17 was blown in the air by hitting a Russian 9M38M1 missile filled with a Russian warhead of type 9N314M explosives. The Russian missile was fired from the BUK missile system at Eastern Ukraine.
The judges rejected the open-source international investigators which linked the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Unit and the Russian military unit based in Kursk city of Russia, responsible for the shot down of MH 17 as falsified and not assessed clearly.
The families of the victims of flight MH 17 believes that if Russia should hold accountable earlier, then the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 could be limited.
The judges ruled in their findings that the shot of the MH 17 Malaysian jet was a deliberate action and was not intended to shoot the passenger airliner.
Introduction of the Convicts in MH 17 of Malaysia
The One convict is Igor Girkin, the military leader of the Russian-backed independent region of Donetsk Peoples Republic and sentenced to life imprisonment for deploying the missile. The second convict, Sergei Dubinsky, is sentenced for ordering and transporting the BUK missile launching system, and the third convict is Leonid Kharchenko, who was sentenced for overseeing the Buk missile system on the orders of Dubinsky.
The fourth accused is Oleg Pulatov, who is not trialed on absentia because Pulatov made his representation in the court through his counsels. Pulatov is acquitted by the court even though he is found guilty of knowing the missile system.
