Prosecutors seek life sentences for MH17 shoot-down suspects

‘It’s a relief that the prosecutors demanded the maximum sentence,’ says man who lost three relatives in crash

The reconstructed wreckage of MH17 (AP)

Dutch prosecutors have called for life sentences to be given to four suspects charged with murder over the downing of flight MH17.

A total of 298 people were killed when the Malaysian Airlines passenger plane was shot down over Ukraine in 2014, as it made its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The victims came from 17 different countries, but the majority were from the Netherlands.

In May 2018, a team of international investigators declared that the weapon used in the attack belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. But Moscow has always refuted this version of events.

Speaking on Wednesday, Manon Ridderbeks, one of the Dutch prosecutors, said that four defendants – all of whom remain at large – helped to transport the Buk missile system to Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The suspects are the former Russian intelligence officers Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian in the Donetsk People’s Republic’s “military intelligence” unit.

Prosecutor Thijs Berger said the four men “planned this violence beforehand and they organised it in close cooperation”.

Piet Ploeg, who lost three relatives including his brother in the crash, welcomed the prosecutors’ decision to press for life imprisonment.

“It’s a relief that the prosecutors demanded the maximum sentence,” he said, adding that, even if they are not arrested and jailed, “it is just as important that the world knows who was responsible”.

The prosecution’s case is built on evidence gathered from intercepted phone calls, social media posts and satellite imagery.

In recordings played in court earlier this week, a group of men – identified as the defendants by the prosecutors – can be heard talking about moving “our Buk” and then later celebrating when it hits what they mistakenly think is a Ukrainian military plane.

All four suspects deny involvement, with only Mr Pulatov sending lawyers to represent him. The trial against them began almost two years ago and a verdict is expected before the end of next year.