PARIS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd December, 2021) The Netherlands prosecutor's office proposed to decrease the amount of compensation to be provided to the relatives of the MH17 crash victims from 40,000-50,000 Euros to 30,000-40,000 euros, prosecutor Birgit van Roessel said at a hearing on Tuesday.
Hearings on the plane crash resumed Monday. In December, the Hague District Court received over 300 compensation claims from the relatives of the plane crash victims, with the amount of compensation requested varying from 40,000 to 50,000 euros, depending on the degree of kinship.
"The amount of compensation must be assessed against Ukrainian legislation, which differs from Dutch law... We believe that the basic amount of 20,000 euros as compensation for the first category of relatives can be increased by 20,000 euros, which is justified by the extraordinary nature of claims... This means that the first category of relatives will receive the compensation amounting to 40,000 euros," the prosecutor said at the hearing, reading out the indictment.
Van Roessel clarified that the first category of relatives includes husbands and wives, partners, children and parents who lived together with the deceased.
"For the second category, which includes children who did not live with the deceased parents, or parents who did not live together with the deceased children, we consider a reasonable amount of 35,000 euros. For the third category, which includes brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, we suggest the compensation of 30,000 euros," the prosecutor said.
The trial over the MH17 crash began on March 9, 2020 in the Netherlands. The defendants in the case are Russian citizens Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian Igor Kharchenko. Pulatov is represented at the court by an international group, while the other suspects are being tried in absentia. The trial on the merits started on June 8, 2021.
The MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near the city of Donetsk on July 17, 2014. All 298 passengers, mostly Dutch, and crew members were killed. The interim conclusions presented by the Dutch-led international Joint Investigation Team, which does not include Russia, suggested that the plane was downed by a Russian-made Buk missile originating with a military brigade stationed in the Russian city of Kursk.
Sabine ten Doesschate, Pulatov's lawyer said that Dutch prosecutors withheld a statement of witness S45 who claimed that a Russian Buk missile was not involved.
