AMSTERDAM (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th March, 2020) Dutch prosecutors are seeking to call Russian citizen Oleg Pulatov to testify as a witness in the criminal trial into the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, a court heard on Tuesday during the second day of pre-trial hearings in the Netherlands.
Thijs Berger, a prosecutor in the trial, raised the issue of Pulatov's potential involvement in judicial proceedings. Pulatov and three other men � Russian citizens Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinsky, as well as Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko � were named by the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in June 2019 as suspects in the case.
"If the defense cannot choose at this time the most adequate modality for such an interview [Pulatov's testimony], we would like to state, at least call him [Pulatov], summon him as a witness in the cases of the other defendants ... so he can choose later on whether or not he would like to use that opportunity. He will still be free to decide," Berger told the courtroom.
After Berger made his concluding statements during Tuesday's proceedings at the Schiphol Judicial Complex, the court was adjourned until March 23.
Earlier in the day, Berger stated that testimony from new witnesses could be used during the ongoing investigation and that any additions to the case file would be made before a pre-trial review hearing in June.
On July 17, 2014, a Malaysian Airlines jet bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam crashed in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. Kiev and the self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine's Donbas region have accused each other of shooting down the aircraft.
Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in the incident and has called the JIT investigation biased and politicized as Russia's evidence, including radar data showing that the plane had been shot down by a Ukrainian Buk missile, has been ignored by investigators.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said that he would not comment on the ongoing judicial proceedings.
