SCHIPHOL, Netherlands (CN) — Prosecutors on Monday started a multiday presentation in a high-security courtroom in the Netherlands summarizing their case against four men accused of shooting down a passenger jet over eastern Ukraine seven years ago.
Dutch authorities have charged three Russian men and one Ukrainian man with 298 counts of murder as well as downing an aircraft for allegedly supplying the Buk surface-to-air missile prosecutors say shot Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, or MH17, out of the sky in July 2014.
“Today we are here to do right by the 298 victims of flight MH17,” public prosecutor Thijs Berger told judges on the District Court of the Hague, which is hearing the trial at a secure facility near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, where the plane departed en route to Malaysia.
The prosecution claims that the four men - Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko — served in leadership roles in the military of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the government of a breakaway region of Ukraine. All of them remain at large. Only Pulatov is represented by counsel, while the other three are being tried in absentia.
Months before the tragedy, Ukraine's pro-Russian government stepped down after protesters took to the streets. Moscow responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and, according to prosecutors, backing separatist forces in the area of eastern Ukraine where MH17 was shot down.
Leading up to the disaster, the separatists had been repeatedly attacked by the Ukrainian air force and, without stronger weapons, they were unable to defend themselves. "Buk is our only hope," Girkin, an ex-Russian air force commander who became the DPR’s defense minister, said in a call intercepted by Ukrainian authorities.
For most of Monday, the three-person prosecution team walked the court through wiretapped conversations and how it connected phones to the suspects. Ukrainian security forces had been tracking the men's phones for months before the incident.
Prosecutors also outlined their evidence that the Buk missile was brought over the Russian border into Ukraine and transported to the firing location in an effort coordinated by the four defendants. According to investigators, Dubinsky, Kharchenko and Pulatov were heard discussing the need for and the arrival of the Buk, while Girkin’s involvement is referenced.
The trial is being held in the Netherlands since most of the passengers on board the flight - which departed from Amsterdam en route to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014 - were Dutch. Many of the 198 Dutch travelers were heading for a summer holiday. Under Dutch law, the Netherlands has the right to prosecute crimes that occur against its citizens abroad and can choose to include victims of other nationalities. However, for legal certainty, Ukraine ceded its right to the Netherlands to handle the proceedings.
On Monday, the prosecution preemptively addressed a possible argument by the defense that the men have combatant privilege, a legal concept that grants immunity to soldiers during armed conflict.
“A war is not a license to use violence against everyone,” Berger told the court. Prosecutors argue that the men were not part of a uniformed military but rather a militia group. Further, combatant immunity is only extended to military targets, not civilian ones like the Boeing 777 passenger jet.
The prosecution's arguments will continue for two more days. On Wednesday, they are expected to announce their request for sentencing, should the men be convicted. All of the defendants could face life in prison.
Last year, more than 100 relatives used their right to address the court, describing the emotional turmoil they had been through since the tragedy. A verdict in the case is not expected until late 2022.
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