The MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near the city of Donetsk on 17 July 2014. All 298 passengers, mostly Dutch nationals, and crew members, were killed. Kiev accused local militias of downing the aircraft, while they, in turn, said that had no weapons capable of downing such a plane.
Investigators looking into the downing of flight MH17, which crashed not far from the city of Donetsk in 2014, have named 4 suspects, including 3 Russians and 1 Ukrainian, according to a victim’s relative.
“They gave us the names of four people. Those are three Russians and one Ukrainian; they are Girkin, Pulatov, Dubinsky, Kharchenko,” she said.
The sources also stated that the court hearing of this case is set to take place on 9 March 2020.
Later in the day, representatives of the joint investigation team confirmed that the four named suspects will be prosecuted. The investigators also announced that international orders for their arrest will be issued. The suspects will face murder charges.
Russia, which has been excluded from the investigation, has also repeatedly denied the accusations about its involvement in the tragedy, arguing that it had provided the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) with evidence proving that it was Ukraine’s Buk systems that hit the Boeing. Moscow expressed its frustration that the information had been ignored by the investigators.
Late last month, Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad has expressed his indignation with the fact that the probe into the 2014 crash of the Malaysia Airlines-operated Boeing in Ukraine was not conducted in an unbiased way with Kuala Lumpur’s participation. According to him, the investigation was rather focused on simply pinning the blame on Russia for political reasons.
The MH17 flight en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam crashed close to Donetsk on 17 July 2014. All 298 passengers, mostly Dutch nationals, and crew members, were killed. Kiev accused local militias of downing the aircraft, while they, in turn, said that had no weapons capable of downing such a plane.