The Dutch court that is hearing the MH17 plane crash case should grant a request of Russian national Oleg Pulatov's defense to interview another defendant, Sergey Dubinsky, as a witness, Dutch prosecutor Ward Ferdinandusse said on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th November, 2020) The Dutch court that is hearing the MH17 plane crash case should grant a request of Russian national Oleg Pulatov's defense to interview another defendant, Sergey Dubinsky, as a witness, Dutch prosecutor Ward Ferdinandusse said on Friday.
The trial of four suspects in the 2014 MH17 flight downing in eastern Ukraine Russian nationals Pulatov, Dubinsky and Igor Girkin as well as Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko began in March in the Netherlands. Pulatov is represented by an international group of lawyers, while the others are being tried in absentia.
Last week, Pulatov's defense asked the court to interview the other defendants. In late October, Dubinsky used independent journalism project Bonanza Media to announce that he was ready to take a polygraph test in Russia in the presence of a representative of the Dutch prosecutor's office.
Speaking at a hearing on Friday, Ferdinandusse said that Dubinsky's readiness to answer questions had made the prosecutors see Pulatov's request to interview the former in a different light. According to the prosecutor, they have many questions for Dubinsky. So, he continued, the court should accept Dubinsky's offer to answer further questions as a witness in the Pulatov case.
Ferdinandusse noted that the Netherlands would not ask Dubinsky to take a polygraph test, as it questions reliability of polygraph evidence in criminal cases.
As for where the questioning should take place and how it should be organized, it is up to investigators, he added.
Flight MH17 crashed with 298 people on board on July 17, 2014, in eastern Ukraine while en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, leaving no survivors. Kiev accused Donbas militias of downing the aircraft, while the self-proclaimed republics said that they had no weapons capable of downing such a plane.
The crash is being investigated by the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which claims that the aircraft was downed by a Buk missile originating from the Russian armed forces. The Russian Foreign Ministry has refuted the accusation as groundless and called the investigation biased.
Russia has said that the JIT ignored the information Moscow gave the Netherlands the radar data and documents proving that the Buk missile that hit the Boeing belonged to the Ukrainian government forces.
