The Hague District Court did not directly link the use of the Buk air defense system that led to the MH17 plane crash with Russia, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the courtroom on Thursday
SCHIPHOL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th November, 2022) The Hague District Court did not directly link the use of the Buk air defense system that led to the MH17 plane crash with Russia, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the courtroom on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the court found Russian citizens Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko guilty of the MH17 plane crash, and of killing 298 of its passengers, and sentenced them to life imprisonment in absentia.
The court found the accused Russian citizen Oleg Pulatov not guilty in the MH17 crash case, and rejected the prosecutor's office's demand to put him in prison. Pulatov was exempt from liability for compensation claims, while the three accused will have pay the relatives of the crash victims a total of $16.5 million.
During the court hearing, Judge Hendrik Steenhuis spoke exclusively about the responsibility of the four accused, without touching on the topic of Russia's involvement in the incident. Although, however, Steenhuis said that the court believes that Russia had influence over the DPR in 2014.
The MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near the city of Donetsk on July 17, 2014. All 298 passengers and crew members were killed.
