Malaysia B772 near Donetsk on Jul 17th 2014, aircraft was shot down from separatist controlled ground

Last Update: November 17, 2022 / 16:37:15 GMT/Zulu time

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Photo of Malaysia Airlines 9M-MRD, Boeing 777-200 — Malaysia Airlines 9M-MRD, Boeing 777-200 (Photo credit: Aero Icarus / Flickr / License: CC by-sa)

Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jul 17, 2014

Classification
Crash

Airline
Malaysia Airlines

Aircraft Registration
9M-MRD

Aircraft Type
Boeing 777-200

ICAO Type Designator
B772

On Jun 19th 2019 the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) held a press conference releasing additional information about the progress of the criminal investigation into the shoot down of MH-17. The investigation named and prosecuted four individuals including:

1) Igor Girkin (aka Strelkov), who used to be a high ranking officer within Russia's secret service and was the military commander of the separatists at the time of the shoot down (editorial note: and who already appeared prominently 20 minutes after the shoot down in our coverages by claiming the separatists had shot down an Ukrainian AN-26, a message which was quickly removed from both the separatist websites and all Russian media sites after it became known that the claimed AN-26 in fact was a Boeing 777 on the ground, see the first part of our coverages)

2) Sergey Dubinskiy, who used to be high ranking officer within the Main Intelligence Service (GRU) of Russia and at the time was Igor Girkin's deputy

3) Oleg Pulatov, who used to be a military commander of a specialized Russian intelligence service and at the time of the shoot down was the deputy head of the separatists' secret service

4) Leonid Kharchenko, who is an Ukrainian citizen with no military background but was commander of a military unit in the Donetsk region at the time of the shoot down, he received his orders directly from Dubinskiy.

The JIT stated:

The Dutch Public Prosecution Service will summon the four suspects, in order to account for their role in bringing down flight MH17 in court. They will be prosecuted for:

- causing the crash of flight MH17, resulting in the death of all persons on board, punishable pursuant to Article 168 of the Dutch Criminal Code;

- the murder of the 298 persons on board of flight MH17, punishable pursuant to Article 289 of the Dutch Criminal Code.

The JIT also wrote: "During the press conference, the Public Prosecution Service emphasised that it is only announcing the charges against the suspects; it is up to the court to pass judgment on those accusations."

The court trial has been set to begin on Mar 9th 2020.

On Nov 17th 2022 the Court in Netherland's The Hague ruled that Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Leonid Kharchenko worked together to bring the Buk Missile system from a Russian Military Base to the Ukraine and into position for the launch. There is plentiful evidence that the missile was launched from a field in rebel-held territory, the court reasoned, there is no reasonable doubt possible. The court stated, that even if the shootdown of MH-17 amounted to a military miscalculation, such an error does not change the intent. The three men were convicted for life imprisonment but are unlikely to serve the jail time due to them living in Russia, which does not permit their extradition. Oleg Pulatov, the only defendant represented by a lawyer, was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Prosecution and defendants have two weeks time to appeal the verdict.