Dutch court to listen to evidence in air travel MH17 trial
07 June, 2021
Dutch judges will in Mon (Jun 7) start hearing evidence against three Russian suspects and a Ukrainian in the downing of Malaysia Airlines airline flight MH17 above war-torn Ukraine in 2014.
The trial formally began in March 2020 but has up to now been coping with legal arguments, mainly about the admissibility of evidence in the crash where 298 passengers and crew were killed.
The four suspects - Russian nationals Oleg Pulatov, Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko - are staying tried in absentia. Simply Pulatov has legal representation.
"The court will open up the MH17 criminal trial proper and, through examining and discussing this content of the prosecution data file, elucidate the key queries which it has recently begun to address," the court said in a affirmation.
"Was flight MH17 shot down by a BUK missile? Was a BUK missile fired from an agricultural discipline near Pervomaiskyi? Does the accused are likely involved in this?" the affirmation added.
The Boeing 777 plane was travelling from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over part of eastern Ukraine manipulated by pro-Russian rebels.
An international investigation figured a BUK missile that had at first result from the Russian army's 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade located in metropolis of Kursk was responsible.
All suspects are accused to be key statistics among the separatist rebels battling Kiev.
"EMOTIONALLY LOADED"
The trial is being held in holland, in a secure courtroom around Schiphol airport, since it was the point of departure for the doomed plane, and because 196 of the victims were Dutch.
The court said that the "hearing on the merits" will get started on Mon with general topics like the investigation by the examining magistrate, followed by three more times of conversation from Tuesday to Thursday.
The prosecution and defence will have the opportunity to raise issues during hearings enduring until Jul 9.
Family members of the victims will be able to address the court found in September, it said.
The judges visited the shrapnel-pierced wreckage for the first time in May in what they described as an "emotionally loaded" day time.
Torn shreds of leading of the plane have already been reconstructed on a wire cage at Gilze-Rijen surroundings base in holland.
"We realise that go to to the reconstruction of MH17 as part of the official criminal method will be incredibly emotionally loaded for family members," presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis stated at the time.
"This is a good reconstruction of an aircraft where their loved kinds were underway to a destination that they hardly ever reached as the aircraft crashed through the air travel and all on board perished."
Pulatov, the simply suspect to come to be represented at the trial by attorneys, said in a video recording played to the courtroom found in November that he previously seen no indication of any missile.
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