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Dutch prosecutors say three Russian nationals and a Ukrainian will be tried on murder charges for their alleged roles in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which killed all 298 people on board.
In announcing the first criminal charges in the air disaster, members from the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) told a news conference that evidence showed a direct line of military command between Ukrainian separatists and Russia.
To back up the claim, they played phone calls of the suspects discussing the incident by telephone, via social-media chats and a computer image reconstruction of events.
“Today, we will send out international arrest warrants for the four suspects that we will prosecute,” Dutch chief prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said.
“They will also be placed on national and international wanted lists. Because of that, we will reveal their full names and we will show you their pictures. The four persons are: Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, and Leonid Kharchenko,” he added, noting that Kharchenko was Ukrainian, while the others held Russian citizenship.
The airliner flying between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur was blasted out of the sky on July 17, 2014, over territory in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists.
