Dutch prosecutors call for life terms for MH17 suspects

Members of the Dutch expert team watch as parts of the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 are removed and loaded on a truck at the crash site near the village of Grabove in eastern Ukraine, on November 16 2014. AFP FILE PHOTO

Badhoevedorp, Netherlands — Dutch prosecutors on Wednesday called for life in prison for four suspects on trial in absentia accused of downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 with a surface-to-air missile in 2014, killing 298 people.

The four suspects on trial are Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko, accused of launching the BUK missile that hit the plane over war-torn eastern Ukraine.

“We are asking that the suspects Girkin, Dubinsky, Pulatov and Kharchenko, each for their responsibility of crashing a plane leading to the death and murder of 298 people, be sentenced to life in prison,” prosecutor Manon Ridderbeks told the court Wednesday.

All four have refused to appear in court in the Netherlands and are being tried in absentia.

Prosecutors on Monday launched closing arguments in the trial, saying the four suspects played pivotal roles in securing the BUK system, which was most likely intended to strike a Ukrainian warplane.

International investigators say the BUK missile was originally brought from a Russian military base, ostensibly to be used in the fight against Ukrainian forces.

A verdict at the high-security court, near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport where MH17 took off on its doomed flight to Kuala Lumpur, is not expected until late 2022 at the earliest.

The hearings come as fresh tensions soar over Ukraine, with the West accusing Moscow of planning an invasion.