Flight mh17 trial to start of four men accused of murdering 298 over ukraine

The trial of four men accused of murdering 298 people on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 is set to begin on March 9, 2020, in the Netherlands. The trial is expected to be one of the most complex and high-profile cases in recent history.

Flight MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over eastern Ukraine. The crash was caused by a Buk missile system, which was fired from a location controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

The four accused men are:

  1. Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer who was the commander of the separatist forces in eastern Ukraine at the time of the crash.
  2. Sergey Dubinskiy, a Russian citizen who was a member of the separatist forces and was involved in the operation of the Buk missile system.
  3. Oleg Pulatov, a Russian citizen who was a member of the separatist forces and was involved in the operation of the Buk missile system.
  4. Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian citizen who was a member of the separatist forces and was involved in the operation of the Buk missile system.

The trial is being held in the Netherlands because the majority of the victims were Dutch citizens, and the country has jurisdiction over the case. The trial is expected to last several months and will involve testimony from hundreds of witnesses, including experts, investigators, and survivors of the crash.

The prosecution will argue that the four accused men were part of a conspiracy to shoot down the plane, and that they were motivated by a desire to create a humanitarian crisis and to disrupt the Ukrainian government's efforts to quell the separatist rebellion. The defense teams for the accused men will likely argue that their clients were not involved in the shooting down of the plane, and that the evidence against them is circumstantial.

The trial is expected to be closely watched by international observers, and it could have significant implications for the relationships between Ukraine, Russia, and the Netherlands. The case is also seen as a test of the Netherlands' ability to hold accountable those responsible for international crimes, and to provide justice to the victims and their families.