MH17 trial: Pulatov's lawyer says that plane could have been downed by Ukrainian military

"Ukraine has a large arsenal of Buk systems and missiles. There were 96 missiles of this type in Ukraine in the area where MH17 was shot down," said Pulatov's lawyer Sabine Ten Doesschate, an Ukrinform correspondent in The Hague reports.

According to her, it cannot be ruled out that the plane "could have been shot down by the Ukrainian military."

Sabine Ten Doesschate also stated that the investigation ignored the opinion of Russian experts, including representatives of the Russian concern "Almaz-Antey".

Pulatov's lawyers demanded that about 100 witnesses and experts be questioned and said they saw the need for further investigation.

The court's position will be announced on Friday, June 26.

As reported, the eighth court hearing in MH17 trial started at the Schiphol Judicial Complex in the Netherlands on June 23 at 10:00 local time.

The Dutch lawyers, who represent the interests of one of the four suspects, Oleg Pulatov, lieutenant colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, who expressed a desire to participate in the trial, continued their speech.

In March this year, the District Court of The Hague began the consideration of the case of the downing of flight MH17 in the sky over Donbas.

On June 19, 2019, the international Joint Investigation Team named four suspects believed to be involved in the transportation and combat use of the Buk missile system, from which MH17 flight had been downed. Three of them are Russians: Igor Girkin (Strelkov), former colonel in Russia's FSB intelligence service and former so-called defense minister of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic"; Sergey Dubinskiy, general (at the time of downing – colonel) of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and head of the so-called "Main Intelligence Directorate of the Donetsk People’s Republic"; Oleg Pulatov, lieutenant colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The fourth suspect is Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian civilian, who fought on the side of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic."

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over conflict-hit Donbas in July 2014. There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board. All of them died. The JIT reported that the plane had been shot down from a Buk missile system that belongs to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Kursk.

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