The government of the Netherlands has announced that it will file a case against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights over the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014.
The suit will aim to achieve “justice for 298 victims of the downing,” the government said in a statement, pledging to support “all 298 MH17 victims, of 17 different nationalities, and their next of kin.”
“The pursuit of truth, justice and accountability remains the top priority for the Dutch government. The government has always said that it would not rule out any legal remedy to achieve this goal,” it said. “This latest course of action brings us one step closer.”
MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014 near the town of Snizhne in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Of the 298 people killed in the crash, two-thirds were Dutch citizens.
Russian armed forces and their proxies in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas are widely understood to be responsible for the incident, a charge that the Kremlin continues to deny.
During a ninth hearing of the MH17 trial in June, Dutch prosecutors presented further evidence to support the theory that the airliner was downed by a Buk anti-air system brought into the Donbas from Russia.
The court in the Hague recently rejected a request from Oleg Pulatov, a key suspect in the investigation, to present two “alternative scenarios” during the trial.
In July 2017, the Dutch and Ukrainian governments first concluded an agreement on international legal cooperation in order to facilitate the trial and prosecution of suspects in the downing. The first hearing was adjourned on March 10, 2020. The trial recently resumed after being postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
A former Russian FSB colonel, Igor Girkin, stated that he took “moral responsibility” for the downing of the flight, but refused to appear in court or claim practical responsibility for the attack on the airliner.
Russia has repeatedly denied all involvement in the crash. However, as first reported by open source investigative unit Bellingcat, a fake, Russian-controlled “Spanish air-controller expert” appeared online to share bogus theories about the plane’s interception by a Ukrainian fighter jet within just hours of the crash.
This “person” went on to speak with Russia’s RT propaganda network in a now deleted interview.
The defence team in the Hague recently called upon the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team to allow the misinformation from “Carlos the Spanish Air-Controller” to be investigated, a move widely seen as a time-wasting measure to delay the legal proceedings. The defense will also attempt to call “eyewitnesses” who claim to have witnessed Ukrainian fighter planes circling in the skies above Snizhe, Bellingcat reported.
