A Dutch court on Thursday convicted three men and acquitted one 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 "are 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 of the victims.None of the suspects was at the high-security court in the Netherlands for the verdict, while dozens of families traveled from all over the world to hear the judgment after a two-and-a half-year trial.All 298 passengers on board the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed when the plane was hit by a missile, fired by what judges said were Russian-controlled separatists as it flew over eastern Ukraine.Judges found Girkin, Dubinsky and Kharchenko could all be held responsible for the transport of the Buk missile from a military base in Russia and deploying it to the launch site even if they did not pull the trigger.There was not enough evidence to show that Pulatov, the only suspect to have legal representation during the trial, was involved, they said.The court ruled there was "ample evidence" to show the plane was brought down by the missile, and that it was fired from a field in eastern Ukraine in an area controlled by the pro-Moscow Donetsk People's Republic, which was fighting against Kyiv's forces.The proof included a photo of a smoke trail, witness testimony, satellite images, telephone intercepts, video images, and shrapnel.The court ruled out "alternative scenarios" suggested by the defense including Russia's initial suggestion that a Ukrainian fighter jet could have been responsible.Judges also found that the Donetsk People's Republic was "under Russian Federation control" at the time of the downing of MH17.Russia however "still denies to this day" that it controlled the DPR at the time, meaning that the defendants could not claim immunity from prosecution as formal combatants, the judges said.The crash triggered global outrage and sanctions against Moscow, with Ukraine's famed sunflower fields littered with bodies and wreckage.
Some victims, including children, were still strapped into their seats after the plane was blasted out of the sky.Eight years later, the region where MH17 crashed has become one of the key battlegrounds in Russia's nearly nine-month-old war in Ukraine.