Defense Denounces MH17 Plane Crash Investigation as One-Sided

Source dpa, Hamburg, Germany (TNS)

June 23, 2020

Amsterdam (dpa) - The defence team in the Dutch-led trial against several suspects in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over war-torn eastern Ukraine condemned the investigation as one-sided on Monday in comments to the court.

The defence team called for additional investigations that could support the theory held by Russia that Flight MH17 was shot down by Ukrainian military forces.

All 298 people on board Flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, were killed when the passenger jet was shot down by a missile that the Dutch-led investigative team has determined came from Russia. Most of the victims were Dutch.

Four suspects - Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko - are being tried in absentia. Only Pulatov has had lawyers representing him.

The prosecutors have relied too much on Ukraine's perspective, the defence team said before the judges in the specially established courthouse at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

The indictment does not consider any other scenario for the shooting and is based primarily on information and witnesses from Ukraine, according to the defence team.

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