Moscow spoke of a “political” verdict after the conviction to the life imprisonment of two Russians and a Ukrainian tried in absentia in The Hague.
MO12345LEMONDE With AFP
The Russian Ambassador to the Netherlands was summoned on Friday, November 18, to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs due to the comments of his government, which denounced a “political” verdict after the condemnation of two Russian soldiers and one Ukrainian separatist for the destruction of the MHH17 flight of Malaysia Airlines, which left 298 dead in 2014.
“In doing so, Russia discredits the Dutch rule of law. It is absolutely unacceptable”, judges the ministry in a statement released in the aftermath of their judgment.
Thursday, in The Hague, the Russians Igor Guirkine and Sergei Doubinski, and the Ukrainian Leonid Khartchenko were sentenced to life imprisonment. They are in Russia or in the Ukrainian territories annexed by Moscow, and their extradition seems excluded. Judging that she should have closed her air space due to the separatist conflict in Donbass, the Russian authorities have always said that Ukraine was solely responsible for the disaster. Of the 298 victims, 193 were of Dutch nationality.