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WORLD NEWS Saturday 7 March 2020

MH17 families hope truth emerges from unprecedented trial

By MIKE CORDER Key questions remain over
AMSTERDAM (AP) — United who authorized the missile's
by grief across oceans and movement and who fired
continents, families who lost the Buk that brought down
loved ones when Malaysia MH17. It remains to be seen
Airlines Flight 17 was shot whether the trial, expected
down in 2014 hope that a to last months, will provide
trial starting next week will all the answers.
finally deliver something "My expectations are very
that has remained elusive low," Fredriksz-Hoogzand
ever since: The truth. said in her home. "But what
A trial starts Monday in the we want is to know the
Netherlands for three Rus- truth. What happened,
sians linked to their country's and how? What were they
security and intelligence thinking? Who gave the or-
services and a Ukrainian ders?"
rebel commander. They That sentiment is shared in
are accused of mass mur- Malaysia by the family of
der for their alleged roles Mastura Mustafa, who was
in shooting down the Boe- a flight attendant on MH17.
ing 777 on July 17, 2014, as "Praise Allah, we hope this
it passed over conflict-torn trial will give us a conclusive
eastern Ukraine, killing all verdict for us to know the
298 passengers and crew. truth on who is responsible
For the families of the vic- In this Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015, file image, the reconstructed cockpit of Malaysia Airlines Flight for the downing of MH17,"
tims, the trial is the latest MH17 plane is displayed before a news conference by the Dutch Safety Board in Gilze-Rijen, said her brother, Thaib Mus-
development in a con- Netherlands. tafa. "We truly hope that
stant stream of news since Associated Press this case will finally come
they received devastating to an end after so many
phone calls telling them terdam where they lived national law at Vrije Uni- passenger plane was trans- years."
that their loved ones had with Fredriksz-Hoogzand versity Amsterdam. The ported into Ukraine from A clear picture has
been killed. and her husband, Rob. The international investigation the Russian 53rd Anti-Air- emerged over years of
Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand's couple's bedroom remains and prosecution are taking craft Missile Brigade's base investigations into what
life as she knew it ended as it was the day they left, place in the Netherlands in Kursk and the launching brought down the flight.
that summer day. heading for a holiday in In- because most of the vic- system was then returned A Dutch crash investiga-
Her son Bryce and his girl- donesia. tims — 193 people — were to Russia. tion pieced together the
friend Daisy were killed On Monday, they will head Dutch. That announcement led wreckage of the plane af-
when a missile fired from to a conference center to "We've never seen anything the Netherlands and Aus- ter it was brought to a han-
territory controlled by pro- watch the trial proceed- like this in the Dutch system, tralia to declare that they gar on a Dutch air force
Russian rebels tore the pas- ings with other relatives it is huge," she said. There are holding Russia legally base and concluded that
senger jet apart, sending from around the world. The are so many victims, there responsible for the down- it was shot out of the sky by
wreckage and bodies rain- actual courtroom is close are so many victims' rela- ing. a Buk missile.
ing down onto fields of sun- to Amsterdam's Schiphol tives, and they all have the After a painstaking investi- Separately, a Joint Investi-
flowers in eastern Ukraine. Airport where the flight right also to be part of the gation spanning years, an gation Team made up of
The debris field spread known as MH17 had taken proceedings — to speak, to international team of inves- experts from the most-af-
across some 50 square kilo- off, heading for Kuala Lum- claim damages if there is a tigators and prosecutors fected countries examined
meters (20 square miles). pur in Malaysia. guilty verdict." last year named four sus- the wreckage and body
"It never will return to nor- The suspects most likely will Neither Russia nor Ukraine pects: Russians Igor Girkin, parts, questioned witnesses
mal," Fredriksz-Hoogzand stay away and be tried in extradites its citizens. Rus- Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg and experts, studied radar
said. "There's a life before absentia under Dutch law. sia has consistently denied Pulatov as well as Ukrainian and satellite images and
and a life after." The scale of the trial is un- involvement in the down- Leonid Kharchenko. analyzed data and inter-
Pictures and mementos of precedented in Dutch law, ing, even after prosecutors More suspects could face cepted communications
the young couple still adorn said Marieke de Hoon, an alleged that the Buk missile charges as the investiga- before indicting the four
the walls of the house in Rot- assistant professor of inter- system which destroyed the tions continue. suspects. q