As, we will always
remember the MH17 victims, we agree with the decision that those responsible
for shooting down the plane should face criminal charges. We will post this
article about naming 4 Top Suspects Behind MH17 Crash.
Investigators
Name 4 Top Suspects Behind MH17 Crash
June 19, 2019
A team of
international prosecutors has launched the first criminal proceedings against
four suspects in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the
Russia-Ukraine border nearly five years ago.
MH17 was shot
down in July 2014 over territory held by pro-Russian separatist forces in
eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard. Investigators have said that
the plane was shot down by a Russian missile, a claim Moscow has repeatedly
rejected.
The Dutch-led
international team tasked with assigning criminal responsibility for the
plane's downing has opened criminal cases against Russian nationals Igor
Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, as well as Ukrainian national Leonid
Kharchenko, said the chief Dutch prosecutor, Fred Westerbeke, during a press
conference Wednesday.
The court
hearings against the suspects will begin on March 9, 2020, Westerbeke said. The
four men have been charged with causing the crash of MH17 and with murdering
its passengers.
The Joint
Investigation Team (JIT) will not seek extradition because the constitutions of
both Russia and Ukraine forbid extradition of their nationals, Westerbeke said.
It will instead ask Moscow to arrest and question Girkin, Dubinsky and Pulatov.
The
investigation team said Girkin was a former FSB colonel who served as minister
of defense 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
investigation also released a wiretapped phone call between Putin aide Vladislav
Surkov and former DNR head Alexander Borodai in which they discuss Russia
providing military assistance.
Investigators
have collected enough evidence to show that Russia provided the missile
launcher used to shoot down MH17, Westerbeke said.
The JIT had
informed victims' families of the progress in the case before presenting their
findings to the media on Wednesday morning.
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 ahead of the team’s announcement on Wednesday.
The
Netherlands has said Russia has not cooperated with the investigation and
Moscow is not expected to surrender the suspects. Dutch authorities have said
the suspects may be tried in absentia.
The
Bellingcat investigative website on Wednesday said it had identified a number
of separatist fighters who were responsible for misidentifying MH17 as a target
and for the escort and deployment of the Buk missile launcher that downed the
airplane.
The group
includes Russian military and intelligence officers and Ukrainian separatists.
Bellingcat said it was not yet clear who exactly gave the order to shoot the
airplane down.
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.
They said
their next step would be to identify individual culprits and to attempt to put
them on trial.
The Russian
government denies having lent any support to pro-Russia rebels fighting
Ukrainian government troops and also denies any involvement in shooting down
the plane.
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.
Reuters
contributed reporting to this article.
INTERNET
SOURCE: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/06/19/investigators-name-4-top-suspects-behind-mh17-crash-a66060
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