Dutch prosecutors will not appeal MH17 case ruling
BERLIN. Dec 1 (Interfax) - Prosecutors in the Netherlands were satisfied by the Hague court ruling in the case over the MH17 flight crash and are not going to file an appeal, the case prosecution said in a statement on Thursday.
"The Netherlands Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has not appealed the judgement in the MH17 criminal case. The Public Prosecution Service is very satisfied that the judgment has clarified for the relatives what the actual circumstances were, surrounding the downing of flight MH17 on 17 July 2014," the statement said.
No extradition of the offenders will be requested because "[Russia] does not extradite its citizens," it said.
On November 17, the Hague District Court found Russian citizens Igor Girkin (Strelkov), Sergei Dubinsky, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko guilty in the case involving the crash of a Boeing 777 plane performing flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and in absentia sentenced them to life in prison. Russian citizen Oleg Pulatov was found not guilty of involvement in the crash and acquitted. According to the court sentence, Girkin, Dubinsky and Kharchenko are also obligated to pay at least 16 million euros in compensation.
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 performing flight MH17 from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was downed in the Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. All 298 people onboard were killed. The crash was probed by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) comprising law enforcement officials from Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and Malaysia.
In September 2016, investigators said that the plane was downed by a Buk air defense missile. The Buk system's affiliation was announced later. According to the JIT, it was a missile system of the 53rd Air Defense Missile Brigade of Russia stationed in the Kursk region, which was handed over to the Donbass militia.
On May 19, 2019, the JIT formally named four defendants accused in the MH17 crash: these are Russian citizens Igor Girkin (Strelkov), Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko.
Russian authorities have repeatedly denied the allegations of Russia's involvement in the crash of the Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine.