An agreement on international legal cooperation between Ukraine and the Netherlands in the case on the downing of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in July 2014 in the sky over Donetsk region and the prosecution of those responsible for this crime will be signed on Friday, July 7.
"This decision was made following an agreement between Ukraine and the Netherlands on international legal cooperation in relation to crimes involving the shelling of the MH17 flight. The agreement is scheduled to be signed on July 7, 2017," the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said the agreement covers practical aspects of the transfer of jurisdiction from Ukraine to the Netherlands and makes it possible for all suspects of committing this crime to participate in the Dutch criminal proceedings.
In this context, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry recalled that in 2015 Russia blocked the resolution of the UN Security Council about the formation of an international tribunal to bring to justice those responsible for firing at the airliner, which led to its crash and the death of almost 300 people on board.
Earlier on Wednesday, July 5, Bloomberg reported that the cases against suspects in the case on the downing of the MH17 flight are planned to be considered in the Netherlands under the Dutch law. This decision was made by representatives of the countries cooperating in the inquiry into this crash - the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Ukraine and Belgium, the report said citing the Dutch media, which cites data from informed sources. The agency said the investigation is ongoing, and the decision does not mean that the perpetrators will be brought to court any time soon.
As reported, the Boeing 777 belonging to Malaysia Airlines flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) was shot out of the sky killing all 298 passengers on board.
The international joint investigatory group (Joint Investigation Team, JIT), which is comprised of prosecutors and law-enforcement officials from Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and Malaysia, as well as EU legal officials, on September 28, 2016 presented its findings in the criminal investigation of the tragedy.
"The JIT concluded that MH17 was downed by a rocket, Series 9M38, launched from a self-propelled ground-to-missile launcher BUK-TELAR, in a farming area in the region of Pervomaiske village. The area is currently held by pro-Russian militant groups. Investigators said missile complex was delivered to Ukraine from the Russian Federation and returned there after the downing," the findings said.
In early June 2017, the British investigative journalists group Bellingcat said it found a photo of the Buk 323 missile launcher of the Russian 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade taken before the launcher was used to down the MH17 passenger flight in Donetsk region in 2014.
In mid-November 2016, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said that investigators had established the names of a hundred individuals suspected of involvement in the crime and that they will be named in 2017.
