THE HAGUE – Dutch judges visited the shrapnel-pierced wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 for the first time today, in an “emotionally loaded” day for the trial of four suspects in the crash.
Torn shreds of the front of the plane, which was shot down over Ukraine in 2014 with the loss of all 298 people on board, have been reconstructed on a wire cage at the Gilze-Rijen air base in the Netherlands.
The trial of three Russians and a Ukrainian over the downing of the Boeing 777 began in March last year, but has moved slowly due to legal arguments. The suspects are being tried in absentia.
“We realise that this visit to the reconstruction of MH17 as part of the official criminal process will be very emotionally loaded for relatives,” said presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis.
“This is a reconstruction of an aircraft in which their loved ones were underway to a destination that they never reached because the aircraft crashed during the flight and all on board perished.”
The judges inspected the outside of the painstakingly reassembled wreckage, still coated in Malaysia Airlines’ white, red and blue paint, and then climbed up a ladder to look inside at the damage.
The jet was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over part of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian rebels.
An international investigation concluded that a BUK missile that had originally come from the Russian army’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade based in the city of Kursk was responsible.
The wreckage was put together after being transported back from war-scarred eastern Ukraine by rail and plane to the air force base in the Netherlands. – AFP, May 26, 2021
