MH17 probe: The Netherlands to continue work to hold Russia accountable - Rutte
The Netherlands will pursue efforts to hold Russia accountable for the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.
That’s according to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Ukrinform reports, referring to his tweet.
“Let me be clear: we will not stop. Since 2014 we have become all too familiar with the pattern of obstruction, untruths and injustice from Russia and its president, Putin. We will continue to call the Russian Federation to account for its role in this tragedy. The Dutch state remains as committed as ever to the international proceedings it has instituted to establish the truth and achieve justice and accountability,” reads Rutte’s statement.
On 17 November last year, three defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment for their role in the downing of flight MH17. The investigation continued after the trial and today the Public Prosecution Service and the international Joint Investigation Team (JIT) presented the investigation’s latest findings.
“Although these findings were extensive, the JIT has announced that there is currently insufficient evidence to warrant any bnew prosecutions. It added that today’s announcement does not mean the end of the criminal justice processs. The investigation will be resumed as and wen any relevant new developments emerge,” Mark Rutte explained.
At the same, the prime minister says he realizes that this decision “is not what many of the next of kin had hoped for.”
As Ukrinform reported earlier, the JIT told a press conference on the progress of the inquiry into the MH17 downing that there are “strong indications that in Russia, the president made the decision to provide the BUK-TELAR” to Russia’s proxy forces in Donbas.
According to the JIT, the latest investigation revealed much about the decision-making process regarding the provision of the missile system, which was transported from Russia to the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. However, it is not possible to find out why the missile was fired and who pressed the button. The available evidence is “not concrete enough to lead to convictions in court, according to the Public Prosecution Service. That is why no new lawsuits are being started at the moment,” according to NL Times.
Memo:
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over an occupied area of the Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board. All of them died.
The international Joint Investigation Team reported that the plane had been shot down from a Buk missile system that belonged to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Kursk.
As reported on November 17, the district court of The Hague found guilty of shooting down the passenger plane flight MH17 and killing all 298 people on board former FSB operative, former "Minister of Defense of the DPR" Igor Girkin (aka Strelkov), General, at the time of the downing Colonel of the GRU of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, head of the "GRU of the DPR" Sergei Dubinsky, and a citizen of Ukraine Leonid Kharchenko, who fought on the side of the "DPR.”
Russian national, Lieutenant Colonel of the GRU, Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted.
The court sentenced Kharchenko, Dubinsky, and Girkin to life imprisonment and ordered that they be detained. The court recognizes Pulatov as innocent," said presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis.