Dutch Prosecution Asks Court To Add Testimonies Of Victims' Relatives To MH17 Crash Case

PARIS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2021) Dutch prosecutor Alwin Dam has asked a court to attach the written statements of relatives of the those killed in the 2014 MH17 crash in Eastern Ukraine to the case.

On Tuesday, the hearings in the case of the Malaysia Airlines plane crash resumed in the Netherlands. Over 90 relatives of victims were granted the opportunity to speak out regarding the crash.

The prosecutor said that the speeches of all the relatives made a great impression, and the pictures displayed and stories told motivated them to keep pursuing the truth. Fourteen testimonies were submitted in a written form to the prosecution's office, which will then be forwarded to the court with a request to add them to the case. These statements showed how tremendous the impact of the crash was, the prosecutor concluded.

During the proceedings, relatives of the victims accused both Russia, blamed by the Netherlands for the attack, and Ukraine, which let the plane fly over the military conflict zone.

Flight MH17 crashed in July 2014 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, leaving 298 people on board dead. Kiev accused the self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas region of shooting down the aircraft, but the latter maintain they had no missiles capable of hitting the aircraft.

The inquiry into the incident has been carried out by Dutch prosecutors and the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT). Russia did not participation in the inquiry. According to JIT, Russia provided the militia in eastern Ukraine with the Buk missile that hit the plane.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called accusations by the JIT of Moscow's involvement in the crash baseless and the investigation biased. Moscow says the Buk that brought down the plane belonged to Ukraine.