INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A Dutch court on Thursday convicted three men and acquitted one other for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014,
which killed all 298 people on board.Russians Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were found guilty of murder
and intentionally causing an aircraft to crash, while Russian Oleg Pulatov was acquitted, head judge Hendrik Steenhuis said.The three found
guilty by the court were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment and were ordered to pay 16 million euros in compensation to the families
and crew onboard, including 80 children
Among the victims of the attack were citizens of the Netherlands, Malaysia, Indonesia, the U.K., and Australia.The debris of the plane was
on July 17, 2014.Dmitry Lovetsky / AP / TASSTogether with Dubinsky, who held a high-ranking military position in the separatist region,
Girkin was found to be responsible for the transportation of the Buk missile system from Russia to the site from which the launch took place
Kharchenko was found to have overseen the safety of the missile system after its delivery and installation, while Pulatov was acquitted.What
responsibility for the incident "inappropriate and unacceptable.""They are unacceptable because, after all, this tragedy occurred in
Only Pulatov, who was acquitted by the court, had legal representation at the trial, making a video statement to the court in which he
pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges
The three men who were convicted by the court are believed to be in Russia or the occupied Ukrainian territories at present
Though all three are subject to international arrest warrants, the Russian constitution prohibits the extradition of its own nationals to
remote, the end of the more than two-year-long trial and the guilty verdicts pronounced mark an important milestone for the relatives and
But I really hope that this day will give families some space to try to get on with their lives," Piet Ploeg, chairman of the MH17
Today, more than eight years later, the judge will rule
Frederique, 19, his son Robert-Jan, 18, and his parents-in-law, told AFP on Thursday that the international community had a responsibility
to bring the convicts to justice despite the limited legal jurisdiction of the court."If they are guilty, the international community should
hunt them down," Zijtveld said.AFP contributed reporting
