Dutch trial over downing of MH17 comes to an end

SCHIPHOL, Netherlands (CN) — A trial in the Netherlands over the downing of a passenger jet in eastern Ukraine in 2014 opened two and a half years ago with a 19-minute recital of the name of every passenger on board and ended on Friday with accusations of judicial bias by one of the defendants.

Oleg Pulatov, one of four men charged with shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 and killing 298 people, denied he was guilty in a surprise video address before the District Court of The Hague on Friday, wrapping up a trial that began in March 2020. 

 "I am not guilty, I had nothing to do with the crash on July 17, 2014," he said in Russian, which was translated by the court.

Wearing a light blue shirt and dark blue suit coat, Pulatov praised his legal team and accused investigators of bias. None of the defendants are in Dutch custody and only Pulatov has retained counsel. The other three men - Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Leonid Kharchenko - are all being tried in absentia. 

Friday’s hearing concluded two days of rebuttal from the defense. The prosecution has asked for a life sentence for all four men but Pulatov’s lawyers have called for a complete acquittal. That would be the “only legally just decision,” defense lawyer Sabine ten Doesschate said in her closing statements. 

Months before the tragedy, Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula extending from Ukraine’s southern coast, and backed separatist groups in eastern Ukraine, following the overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Kyiv.

An international investigative team from the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine concluded the Boeing 777 was shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile that was supplied by the Russian Federation and fired from an area of Ukraine controlled by separatists. The Netherlands has taken on the prosecution because a majority of the victims were Dutch.

Pulatov’s lawyers have focused on arguing that their client did not get a fair trial. Ten Doesschate repeatedly referred to “tunnel vision,” claiming the prosecution failed to look into alternative explanations for the disaster and zeroed in on her client because it was politically palatable. 

Moscow, which has denied any involvement in the crash, has waged a misinformation campaign to muddy the waters around the trial. "The fate of flight MH17 has become a textbook example of a disinformation campaign,” said prosecutor Dedy Woei-a-Tsoi during an earlier hearing.

Eliot Higgins of investigative journalism group Bellingcat, who was interviewed during the investigation because of his organization’s work looking into the disaster, said the authorities have faced an uphill battle.

“The MH17 truther hive mind on social media [has come] up with every possible theory on the evidence pointing to Russia's guilt since the moment MH17 was shot down,” he said in an interview with Courthouse News. 

The investigation led to one of the largest case files in Dutch history, some 65,000 pages in total.

“It was the modern interpretation of the notion of a public trial,” says Marieke de Hoon, an assistant professor of international criminal law at the University of Amsterdam who has been following the trial closely.

All proceedings were live-streamed, simultaneously translated into English, and recordings were provided. The court also gave layman’s explanations of what happened in court, provided daily during the height of the trial.

The Dutch government is currently pursuing several other legal avenues to bring justice to the victims of MH17. "MH17 has been more than the criminal case but also seen in a broader legal approach," de Hoon said.

Earlier this year, the European Court of Human Rights heard arguments in a complaint originally brought by Ukraine and then joined by the Netherlands over the long-running conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine. Russia left the Council of Europe, which oversees the court, following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but cases that were filed before it withdrew will continue.

The Netherlands has also, together with Australia, launched a case at the United Nations’ aviation body, the International Civil Aviation Organization, arguing the Russian Federation violated the 1944 Chicago Convention in helping to shoot down the passenger jet. 

At the end of Friday's hearing, Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said the court expected to issue a verdict by the end of the year. Two possible dates are scheduled, one in November and one in December, and he expects to announce the final date at a hearing in September.

Deviating from his prepared script, Steenhuis thanked everyone for helping with the intensive trial.

“This case has made a huge impression on everybody in court and many people outside," he said. 

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