Three sentenced to life for downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17

GBNEWS24DESK//

A Dutch court on Thursday sentenced three men to life imprisonment over the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, in the early stages of a war that eight years later would put the world on edge.

Russians Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were found guilty in absentia of murdering all 298 people on board and of bringing down the Boeing 777 with a Russian missile. A fourth man was acquitted.

Moscow slammed the verdict as politically motivated, while Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky – battling a full-scale Russian attack after years of low-level fighting in the east – praised it as “important”.

Relatives of MH17 victims blinked away tears as the verdicts were read out in a courtroom packed with families who had travelled from around the world for the end of the two-and-a-half-year trial.

“The court calls the proven charges so severe that it holds that only the highest possible prison sentence would be appropriate,” head judge Hendrik Steenhuis said.

“Imposing these sentences cannot take away the pain and suffering, but there’s hope that today clarity has been provided about who is to blame.”

But none of the suspects was at the high-security court on the outskirts of Schiphol Airport, where the doomed plane took off, after Russia refused to extradite them.

The trial represents the end of a long search for justice for the victims of the disaster, who came from 10 countries, including 196 Dutch, 43 Malaysians and 38 Australians.

“Justice has spoken. We wanted justice to be done and that happened, in a very well-balanced verdict,” Piet Ploeg, chairman of the MH17 foundation, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and nephew, told AFP.

“The role of Russia has been very clearly confirmed by the court.”