MH17 verdict “not the end,” says Dutch prime minister

A Dutch court docket has convicted two Russians and one Ukrainian separatist of homicide for his or her roles within the downing of Malaysia Airways Flight 17 in jap Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 folks onboard.

Russian nationals Igor Girkin, a former colonel of Russia’s Federal Safety Service (FSB), and Sergey Dubinskiy, who was employed by Russia’s navy intelligence company GRU, had been convicted together with Ukrainian separatist Leonid Kharchenko, who had no navy background however is believed to have led a fight unit in Donetsk in July 2014.

A fourth suspect, Russian nationwide Oleg Pulatov, a former soldier of the Russian particular forces Spetsnaz-GRU, was acquitted.

The airplane was flying over a area on the epicenter of combating between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces — the precursor to the present battle.

The lads refused to attend the trial and had been tried in absentia at Schiphol Judicial Complicated in Badhoevedorp, the Netherlands. 

Hendrik Steenhuis, the presiding choose, cited the wealth of proof for the court docket’s determination and dominated out any various explanations for the incident.

The court docket discovered {that a} Russian Buk missile was used to carry down the airplane and that Moscow was in command of the separatists on the time of the assault.

The court docket discovered that the missile launch was carried out intentionally, citing the truth that firing a Buk missile includes a posh course of, however believed that the operators possible thought they had been focusing on a navy plane reasonably than a passenger jet.

Steenhuis mentioned these working the Buk system would have been conscious of the damaging energy of the missile and the results of the assault would have been “crystal clear,” particularly the downing of any plane and the dying of all of these on board.

The proof reviewed by the court docket included together with fragments of a Buk missile discovered embedded within the plane and the our bodies of among the victims, together with movies and pictures exhibiting a Buk system being moved into jap Ukraine from Russia after which again into Russian territory following the downing of the airplane.

Learn CNN’s full report right here.