Hopes for justice fade as relatives mourn 10th anniversary of MH17 downing

The Hague - As relatives gathered on July 17 to mourn victims on the 10th anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17,

hopes are fading that those responsible for shooting down the plane will soon be behind bars.

Russia has refused to extradite three men convicted by a Dutch court, and in 2023 international investigators suspended their work, saying there was not enough evidence to prosecute more suspects.

“I don’t think those responsible will serve their sentences,” said Mr Evert van Zijtveld, who lost his daughter Frederique, 19, his son Robert-Jan, 18, as well as his parents-in-law.

On July 17, hundreds of relatives of the passengers and crew killed, as well as government representatives and dignitaries, gathered in the Netherlands and Australia to mark the anniversary of the tragedy that claimed 298 lives, over half of whom were Dutch.

A memorial was held near Schiphol airport, in the Netherlands, where the doomed flight took off on a bright summer’s day on July 17, 2014.

Hours later, the Boeing 777 jet was shot down by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine, as it passed on a flight line towards Kuala Lumpur.

The victims came from at least 10 countries, with 196 of them Dutch, 43 Malaysian and 38 Australian. 

In Amsterdam, hundreds of family members, joined by Dutch King Willem-Alexander, were set to read out the names of all the victims.

They planted 298 trees to commemorate each victim, and sunflowers, like those that grew at the crash site, were sowed.

Flags of the countries that lost citizens hung at half-mast next to a field of blooming sunflowers.

A similar ceremony was held at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong and former prime minister Tony Abbott, in office when the commercial airliner was shot down, were among the attendees.

“You have lost so much, but you are not alone in your loss. We are with you,” Ms Wong told the friends and relatives of those killed.

“And your grief steels us in the fight for justice, as it has steeled Australia since that terrible day,” she added.

A Dutch court in November 2022 sentenced in absentia three men to life imprisonment for their roles in bringing down the plane over separatist-held pro-Russian territory, during the early stages of a war that saw Moscow seize the Crimean Peninsula.

Russians Igor Girkin

and Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko could all be held responsible for the transport of the BUK missile from a military base in Russia and deploying it to the launch site, the judges said – even if they did not launch the missile themselves.

None of the guilty suspects took part in the legal proceedings or acknowledged their roles in the incident.

A fourth man, Mr Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted.

Though international investigators have suspended their work, they concluded there were “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the supply of the missile that downed the plane.

Russia has denied any involvement and dismissed the 2022 court verdict as “scandalous” and politically motivated.

The EU on July 16 called on Moscow to “accept its responsibility in this tragedy and cooperate fully in serving justice”.

The evidence presented during the MH17 trial “makes it abundantly clear that the BUK surface-to-air missile system used to bring down Flight MH17 belonged beyond doubt to the armed forces of the Russian Federation”, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

Moscow has refused to extradite any of the suspects, saying it is illegal under Russian law.

“The invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of the war has made that really difficult to believe that any of them will be arrested soon,” Mr van Zijtveld told AFP ahead of the memorial, referring to the war against Ukraine launched by Russia in February 2022. AFP