Three Russians, one Ukrainian accused of 2014 downing of flight MH17

[snoop1130]

Three Russians, one Ukrainian accused of 2014 downing of flight MH17

By Toby Sterling and Anthony Deutsch

 

FILE PHOTO: A Malaysian air crash investigator inspects the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo) in Donetsk region, Ukraine, July 22, 2014. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev/File Photo

 

NIEUWEGEIN, Netherlands (Reuters) - Three Russians and a Ukrainian will face murder charges for the July 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in which 298 people were killed, in a trial to start in the Netherlands next March, an investigation team said on Wednesday.

 

The suspects are likely to be tried in absentia, however, as the Netherlands has said Russia has not cooperated with the investigation and is not expected to hand anyone over.

 

The Dutch-led international team tasked with assigning criminal responsibility for the plane's destruction named the four suspects as Russians Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Igor Girkin, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko. It said international arrest warrants for the four have been issued.

 

MH17 was shot out of the sky on July 17, 2014, over territory held by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as it was flying from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. Everyone on board was killed.

 

Most of those on board were Dutch. The joint investigation team formed by Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine found that the plane was shot down by a Russian missile.

 

Last year Russian President Vladimir Putin called MH17's downing a "terrible tragedy" but said that Moscow was not to blame and that there are other explanations for what happened.

 

The governments of the Netherlands and Australia have said they hold Russia legally responsible.

 

Asked if she expected the suspects to attend the trial, Silene Fredriksz, whose son Bryce was on the plane with his girlfriend Daisy, said: "No. No, I don't think so. But I don't care. I just want the truth, and this is the truth."

 

Moscow has said it does not trust the investigation.

 

"Russia was unable to take part in the investigation despite expressing an interest right from the start and trying to join it", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier on Wednesday.

 

The investigation team said Girkin was a former FSB colonel who served as minister of defence of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in the summer of 2014.

 

It said Dubinsky was head of the military intelligence agency of DNR, while Pulatov was head of a second department of the DNR military intelligence agency. Ukrainian national Kharchenko was head of a reconnaissance battalion for the second department, it said.

 

The team said it would ask the Russian government to allow it to question the suspects who are currently in Russia. It said Kharchenko was thought to be in Ukraine at the moment.

 

Prosecutors have previously said the missile system that brought down the plane came from the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, based in the western Russian city of Kursk.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-06-19

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[Tug]

Awww putie don’t want your boys on trial bet those guys are accidentally dead soon

[SammyT]

If the TVF Facebook comments on this story are anything to go by, in the next few hours we're about to be inundated with air crash and ballistic missile experts on this forum who just know that the investigators have incompetently reached the wrong conclusion and charged the wrong people. 

[klauskunkel]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Moscow has said it does not trust the investigation.

The investigation has said it does not trust Russia.

 

[fxe1200]

14 hours ago, SammyT said:

If the TVF Facebook comments on this story are anything to go by, in the next few hours we're about to be inundated with air crash and ballistic missile experts on this forum who just know that the investigators have incompetently reached the wrong conclusion and charged the wrong people. 

Like this one: https://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/mh17-pockmarks-look-very-very-heavy-machine-gun-fire-says-first-osce-monitor-scene

 

I do not believe any report, especially under the circumstance, that either Malaysia, the actual owner of the plane, nor Russia (the primarily accused)  were allowed to participate or monitor the work of the Dutch investigation commission.

[Srikcir]

POTUS-nominee Trump's response in 2017: Russia shouldn’t be held accountable.

• “They say it wasn’t them,” Trump said of Russia. “It may have been their weapon, but they didn’t use it, they didn’t fire it. They even said the other side fired it to blame them.” The Republican presidential candidate later walked back his statement and said it was “probably” Russia and pro-Russian fighters, but that the U.S. needed to focus on its own issues. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-russia-not-to-blame-for-mh17

Fast forward to July 2018: on the anniversary this year—a day after U.S. President Donald Trump met in Helsinki with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin—the State Department was conspicuously silent about it. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/18/state-dept-mh17-ukraine-russia-netherlands-malaysian-airlines/

[Trouble]

1 hour ago, Srikcir said:

POTUS-nominee Trump's response in 2017: Russia shouldn’t be held accountable.

• “They say it wasn’t them,” Trump said of Russia. “It may have been their weapon, but they didn’t use it, they didn’t fire it. They even said the other side fired it to blame them.” The Republican presidential candidate later walked back his statement and said it was “probably” Russia and pro-Russian fighters, but that the U.S. needed to focus on its own issues. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-russia-not-to-blame-for-mh17

Fast forward to July 2018: on the anniversary this year—a day after U.S. President Donald Trump met in Helsinki with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin—the State Department was conspicuously silent about it. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/18/state-dept-mh17-ukraine-russia-netherlands-malaysian-airlines/

So what has this trial got to do with Trump or what he said two years ago.  This is a Dutch investigation and the USA is not involved in the issue. Does Trump need to be brought into every damn thread on this forum?

[sanemax]

1 hour ago, Trouble said:

So what has this trial got to do with Trump or what he said two years ago.  This is a Dutch investigation and the USA is not involved in the issue. Does Trump need to be brought into every damn thread on this forum?

Just be thankful that the Red Bull heir hasnt been mentioned 

[Baerboxer]

18 hours ago, Tug said:

Awww putie don’t want your boys on trial bet those guys are accidentally dead soon

 

Tell us, does America ever hand over military personnel or covert operatives to foreign countries for trial?

[Morch]

1 hour ago, Baerboxer said:

 

Tell us, does America ever hand over military personnel or covert operatives to foreign countries for trial?

 

Yes, but whenever that comes up, there's quite a bit of lively commentary about it on this forum. Russia seems exempt from such criticism, though.

[Chomper Higgot]

4 hours ago, Trouble said:

So what has this trial got to do with Trump or what he said two years ago.  This is a Dutch investigation and the USA is not involved in the issue. Does Trump need to be brought into every damn thread on this forum?

I'd agree with you accept Trump's eagerness to back Russia over this crime has left the door open to compare what he said back then and what we are learning now. 

 

 

[ardsong]

I am surprised that the JIT (Joint International Team) to investigate MH17 did not investigate the reasons that Malaysian airways was willingly flying over a warzone? 

The separatists were active in air defence against Oekranian planes, actually had downed some fighter jets before. So they gathered some better proper defence tools to down a Qekr. bomber. So suddenly a large plane was coming, possible a bomber , so it is logic and proper for warriors in defence to shoot it out of the air. 

Malaysian airways, knew that a war was going on, the threshold for passenger planes was already increased and other more careful airlines, were already flying around the warzone rather than over it. 

Malaysia airlines choose to fly over the airzone, just at the moment the separatists had improved there weaponry

 

Matter of being at the wrong place at the right time; this was a completely preventable accident. IMHO, Malaysia to blame. 

 

[from the home of CC]

too bad they won't bring to trial who is ultimately responsible, this is more symbolism than anything IMO