The trial of flight MH17, which is being held in The Netherlands since March 2020, will likely be delayed by several months. The court wants to try once again to hear an important Russian witness. It is only once this hearing has taken place, if it can, that the prosecution will be able to pronounce its requests for sanctions against the four suspects.
This step was originally scheduled for mid-November but may be postponed until February 2022, the Schiphol Criminal Court announced on Tuesday.
The Public Prosecution Service sent a request for legal assistance to Russia in April to hear Sergei Mutskayev, commander of the 53rd Russian Anti-Aircraft Brigade which, according to the international investigation team, supplied the Buk missile system that downed MH17 on 17 July 2014.
After an initially positive Russian response to this request in August, nothing happened. The court wishes to renew its attempt to hear Sergei Mutskayev, with a deadline set for 1 February. If the witness has not been heard by then, the court will consider that his hearing is impossible.
The Russians Sergei Dubinsky, Igor Guirkin and Oleg Poulatov, as well as the Ukrainian Leonid Khartchenko, four senior officials of the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, are being prosecuted for murders, as well as for having deliberately caused the crash of the flight MH17.
Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 left Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur on 17 July 2014 and was hit in mid-flight by a Buk missile, of Soviet design, over the area of ??armed conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The 298 people on board, including 196 Dutch and four Belgians, were killed.
The missile is said to have driven from the base of the 53rd Russian Anti-Aircraft Brigade in the city of Kursk to the Ukrainian border. After that, the installation would have been taken to a meadow in eastern Ukraine. It is not yet known who pressed the fire button on July 17. The four suspects who are now on trial were part of the ‘chain-of-command’ in eastern Ukraine and, according to justice, were involved in the transport of the missile installation.
