The last court hearing of 2020 was held in a lawsuit in the Netherlands in 2014 about the tragic crash of a passenger plane in the east of Ukraine. It decided to dismiss the lawyers’ request to the court to examine versions of the crime which did not comply with the findings of the Joint Investigation Team, reports the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.
On Wednesday, November 25, at the Schiplole Judicial Center in the Netherlands, the court rejected a request from the lawyers of the suspected Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Pulatov of the General Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces to investigate other versions of the cause of the plane crash.
The court also rejected Pulatov’s lawyer’s request to the court to re-examine all the evidence gathered by the international joint investigation team and to re-examine experts and witnesses. The court, in turn, has allowed the examination of a number of experts and witnesses who could testify about BUK the missile system and whether Pulatov was involved in its transport. The court has also granted access to digital copies of criminal records to the lawyers of 298 relatives of air accident victims.
The court intends to start examining the merits of flight no. MH17 case in 2021.
The International Joint Investigation Team, after several years of investigation, concluded that in July 2014, airlines Malaysia Airlines a passenger plane with 298 people on board in eastern Ukraine was shot down by a missile from the BUK missile system, which belongs to the 53rd Air Defense Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces. All 298 passengers and crew were killed in the plane crash.
Also read: Ukraine witnesses MH17 shooting, Putin plans to exchange prisoners soon
Along with Pulatov, Russian citizens Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko have been accused of committing the crime, Ukrinform.
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