The District Court of The Hague sentenced two Russian citizens and one Ukrainian: Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, and Leonid Kharchenko to life imprisonment and decided to take them into custody.

All of them were found guilty of the crash of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 passenger liner, resulting in the death of 298 people. The fourth accused, Pulatov, has been found not guilty.

This decision was announced by presiding judge Hendrick Steinhaus in the final court session at the Schiphol Judicial Complex on Thursday.

The judge said that they didn’t see mitigating circumstances for the accused. According to the judge, their actions were deliberate, aimed at shooting down the plane, resulting in death. He stated that the court considered those actions grave, for which there can be only the heaviest punishment in the form of imprisonment. Steinhaus added that the court decided to punish Girkin, Dubinsky and Kharchenko in the form of life imprisonment and the court also decided to take them into custody.