Appeal court releases 'DPR' fighter, suspect in MH17 case Tsemakh on personal recognizance
Kyiv's court of appeals on September 5, 2019 decided to release "Donetsk People's Republic" (so-called "DPR") fighter Volodymyr Tsemakh who was in in detention in Kyiv and considered a suspect by the Dutch prosecutor's office in the case involving the shooting down of Boeing MH17.
"To apply a preventive measure in the form of a personal recognizance to suspect Volodymyr Tsemakh. Release Volodymyr Tsemakh immediately in the courtroom," the presiding judge said, reading the decision after the panel of judges returned from the deliberation room on Thursday afternoon.
The appeal court overturned the decision of Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky district court on the extension of the preventive measure in the form of detention to Tsemakh until October 20, 2020.
As reported, Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) was shot down over Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. All 298 passengers on board died.
In May 2018, JIT representatives said they had established that the plane had been shot down by a Russian BUK surface-to-air missile.
In June 2019, the JIT named four persons they suspect of involvement in the downing. They are Russian citizens Igor Girkin (Strelkov), Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko. The Dutch prosecutor said he planned to charge the four suspects in the case of the downed Boeing.
Russian media actively wrote about Vladimir Zemakh in early July 2019. It was reported Ukrainian special services detained Tsemakh, a former air defense commander in the town of Snizhne in "DPR," at the end of June and transferred to Kyiv. It was also reported that a Ukrainian court arrested Tsemakh. There were no official comments by the Ukrainian side on this matter.
On September 3, the Dutch Prosecutor General urged Ukraine not to transfer Tsemakh to Russia, as he is being held as a suspect in the MH17 case, according to an article on the website of the daily Dutch national newspaper NRC Handelsblad.