Netherlands summons Russian envoy over ‘reprehensible’ response to MH17 verdict

By Busra Nur Cakmak

ANKARA (AA) - The Dutch government on Friday summoned the Russian envoy to the Netherlands over Moscow’s response to the verdict in the trial over the downing of passenger flight MH17, local media reported.

Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said that Russia’s response is “entirely reprehensible,” according to the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad.

Three men received life sentences for the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, while one was acquitted, a Dutch court ruled on Thursday.

Russians Sergey Dubinskiy and Igor Girkin, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, were found guilty of causing the crash that resulted in the death of 298 civilians, while another Russian, Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted of all charges.

Dubisnky, Girkin, and Kharchenko were also ordered to pay over €16 million ($16.5 million) in compensation to the relatives of the victims.

Responding to the verdict, the Russian Foreign Ministry said: “Both the proceedings and the outcome of the trial prove that the process was based on a political order to prop up the version of Russia’s responsibility for the tragedy.”

The ministry also accused the court of not being impartial.

“We are certain that the decision to bar the Russian side from the investigation at a minimum did not contribute to the probe’s impartiality," the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said on Friday, as cited by the Russian news agency Tass.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board were killed, including 196 Dutch citizens.

The Hague also confirmed that flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made Buk missile fired from the Pervomaisky area in the Kharkiv region.