MH17 court ruling confirmed for November 17

The District Court of The Hague will rule on the MH17 trial on November 17, the court confirmed on Thursday. Four men are facing 298 counts of murder for their role in downing the Malaysia Airlines passenger flight.

Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people, including 196 Dutch people, died.

According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), pro-Russian separatists fired a BUK missile from a field in Ukraine, downing the plane. They may not have realized it was a passenger plane.

The four men on trial - Rebel leader Igor Girkin, his right-hand hand Sergei Dubinsky, Dubinsky’s second-in-command Oleg Pulatov, and garrison commander Leonid Chartshenko - all played critical roles in bringing or removing the BUK missile installation used to down the plane, according to the authorities. The OM demanded life in prison against all four of them.

Pulatov was the only of the four suspects to appoint lawyers to defend him. They argued for acquittal, accusing the OM of having tunnel vision and presenting a one-sided case.

The court expects the judgment to take half a day. The ruling will likely be announced in the afternoon of November 17. “Developments in the criminal proceedings may lead the provisional date of the judgment to be modified,” the court added. “We will, of course, announce any changes promptly.”