KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysia appreciates the presentation by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on Wednesday of the latest report on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 which was shot down five years ago and killed everyone on board.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement issued on Thursday, said Malaysia remains committed to the JIT process and are equally committed to ensuring that the process is transparent, credible and effective.
“Our approach has always been that conclusions must be based on evidence, and not be politically motivated. In this connection, we call on all parties to cooperate with the process so that the truth will be discovered,” the statement said.
On Wednesday, in a press conference in the Netherlands, the JIT named four suspects to be charged over the death of the passengers and crew on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
In a statement produced by the Ministry of Justice and Security of the Netherlands, the trial will start in March 2020 in the country.
“It has been decided that the Hague district court will hear the case and that the hearings will take place at Justice Complex Schiphol,” said the statement, which was made available online at https://www.government.nl/topics/mh17-incident/achieving-justice/the-criminal-investigation.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the Dutch-led investigative team announced charges against Igor Girkin, a former colonel in the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB; and Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, both of whom had worked for the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU.
The news agency reported that prosecutors also charged Leonid Kharchenko, who is a Ukrainian citizen but led a Russian-backed separatist unit under the command of Mr. Dubinsky.
Flight MH17 departed Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and was on its way to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot before crashing near Torez in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine – about 40 kilometers from the Russian border – on July 17, 2014.
The incident killed 298 people, including 15 crew members.
NNN-BERNAMA
