A Dutch court said on Thursday that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down in 2014 by a Russian-made missile fired from a field in eastern Ukraine, and convicted three suspects of murder for their role in the deadly incident.
The MH17 passenger flight was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew. Andrei Anghel, a 24-year-old Canadian from Ajax, Ont., was among those killed.
At the time, the area was the scene of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, a precursor to this year's conflict. Russia invaded Ukraine in February and claims to have annexed the Donetsk province, where the plane's wreckage and victims' remains were once scattered across cornfields.
"Only the most severe punishment is fitting to retaliate for what the suspects have done, which has caused so much suffering to so many victims and so many surviving relatives," Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said, reading a summary of the ruling.
Families of victims stood weeping and wiping away tears in the courtroom as Steenhuis read the verdict.
Steenhuis said the men did not enjoy any immunity from prosecution, as they were not members of the Russian armed services.
"There is no reasonable doubt" that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile system, Steenhuis said.
The suspects found guilty in absentia where Russians Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, both former intelligence officers, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader.
They are accused of having arranged and transported the BUK missile system, but not of personally having fired it.
All face sentences of up to life in prison.
Oleg Pulatov, also a former Russian intelligence officer, was acquitted.
Russia refrains from immediate comment
Victims' representatives have said the ruling will be an important milestone, though the suspects remain fugitives. They are all believed to be in Russia, which will not extradite them.
Ukraine's president welcomed the ruling, but said that "those who ordered" the attack must now face trial.
"Punishment for all Russian atrocities — both present and past — will be unavoidable," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter.
Moscow denies any involvement or responsibility for MH17's downing, and in 2014 it also denied having any presence in Ukraine. In a briefing in Moscow on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ivan Nechaev told reporters the government would examine the court's findings.
"We will study this decision because in all these issues, every nuance matters," he said.
The four men were charged with shooting down an airplane and with murder in a trial held under Dutch law. They could alternatively be convicted of manslaughter charges if judges at The Hague District Court find the act was not premeditated.
Phone call intercepts that formed a key part of the evidence against the men suggested they believed they were targeting a Ukrainian fighter jet.
Of the suspects, only Pulatov pleaded not guilty, via lawyers he hired to represent him. The others were tried in absentia and none attended the trial.
Victims of MH17, which had been en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came from 10 different countries. More than half were Dutch.
The investigation was led by the Netherlands, with participation from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium.
