Photo: OSCE/Evgeniy Maloletka. Members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine examine the MH17 crash site in July 2014
Particular attention in court was given to the testimony of a witness identified as X48. It was he who was able to tell in detail how the passenger plane was shot down.
Eight years after the crash of the Boeing in the skies over the Donbas, the court of the Netherlands will deliver its verdict this Thursday, November 17.
In the two and a half years that have gone into the case, the courtroom has gone through documents in detail, debunked conspiracy theories, explored alternative scenarios, listened to intercepted telephone conversations, and gave voice to witnesses, BBC reports.
Recall that two-thirds of those killed in the crash of flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, were Dutch, and the Dutch prosecutor led the International Investigation Team that conducted the investigation.
The following are accused of involvement in the plane crash:
Igor Girkin (Strelkov) - a Russian citizen - the Minister of Defense of the self-proclaimed "DPR", a retired FSB officer.
Sergey Dubinsky - a Russian citizen - a retired senior officer of the GRU of the Russian army.
Oleg Pulatov - citizen of Russia - lieutenant colonel of the reserve of the Airborne Forces of the Russian army.
Leonid Kharchenko - a citizen of Ukraine - the commander of the reconnaissance unit of the GRU "DPR".
The Dutch prosecutor's office requested a life sentence for each of them but emphasized that none of the defendants personally participated in launching a missile at a Boeing.
In the first days of the trial of those involved in the plane crash, it turned out that in 2014, at least two Buk anti-aircraft missile systems (SAM) headed from Russia to the territory controlled by the militants.
The Dutch prosecutor's office is sure that GRU officer Oleg Ivannikov was responsible for transporting the first Buk. But his convoy did not reach the "DPR" - Buk missile system broke down on the way. We established this with the help of telephone wiretaps, as well as based on photo and video materials that the investigators received.
Retired GRU officer of the Russian General Staff Sergei Dubinsky was responsible for moving the second Buk, the prosecutor's office established. This Buk successfully reached Donetsk and then went towards the city of Snezhnoye, which is confirmed by numerous photos and videos.
The investigation into the MH17 case received numerous intercepts of telephone conversations, from which it turned out that the commanders of the military formations of the self-proclaimed DPR repeatedly asked Russian officials and generals to deliver a Buk to them to counter Ukrainian aviation.
On one of these recordings, which was listened to in court, a man with the voice of Igor Strelkov (Girkin), then working as the Minister of Defense of the so-called "DPR", several times asks for anti-tank artillery and "normal air defense". Strelkov adds, "all this is necessary, of course, with specialists already ready."
A significant part of the evidence base at this trial is the recordings of telephone conversations intercepted by the SBU and handed over to the investigation.
The three defendants - Strelkov, Dubinsky, and Pulatov - do not deny that their voices are heard on most of the audio recordings of wiretaps attached to the case. The position of Leonid Kharchenko is unknown - he has never commented on the accusations and the course of the process.
