MH17 case could see further investigation conclusions in 2023
Reconstruction of MH17 wreckage (Photo:REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw/Pool/File Photo)
The ongoing investigation into the MH17 tragedy could produce additional results in Spring 2023, head of the joint investigative team in the MH17 case, Digna van Butzelaar, said in a comment to Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne on Nov. 17.
“Part of the investigation is still ongoing – concerned with who were the members of the squad that operated the Buk (anti-air defense) unit, and who allowed it to be transported to Ukraine,” she said.
“We expect that in the spring of next year we can receive the results of our investigation and announce it.”
Butzelaar added that she was satisfied with the results of the investigation, as the court confirmed all the actions and roles of the accused.
On Nov. 17, the District Court of The Hague sentenced Russian citizens Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, and Leonid Kharchenko to life imprisonment, for their involvement in the destruction of a Malaysia Airlines MH17 airliner, carrying 298 people, with a Russia-supplied Buk air defense system. The fourth defendant, Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted. The trial has been ongoing since March 2020.
On July 17, 2014, a Boeing 777 passenger aircraft was operating flight MH17 from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, when a missile from the Russian Buk unit shot it down over the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast (near the village of Hrabovo).
All 298 people on board the aircraft were killed. Russia refuses to recognize its involvement in the tragedy.
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