MH17 judgment day: Verdicts due against 4 suspects at trial

SCHIPHOL, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch court is passing judgment Thursday on three Russians and a Ukrainian charged in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine and the deaths of all 298 passengers and crew on board.

The verdict comes more than eight years after the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was blown out of the sky on July 17, 2014, amid a conflict between pro-Russia rebels and Ukrainian forces, scattering wreckage and bodies over farmland and fields of sunflowers.

None of the suspects appeared for the trial that began in March 2020 and if they are convicted, it's unlikely they will serve any sentence anytime soon. Prosecutors have sought life sentences for all four. Prosecutors and the suspects have two weeks to file an appeal.

The Hague District Court, sitting at a high-security courtroom at Schiphol Airport, is passing judgment against a backdrop of global geopolitical upheaval caused by Russia's full-blown invasion of Ukraine in February and the nearly nine-month war it triggered.

Hundreds of family members of people killed traveled to the court to hear the verdict, bringing them back to the airport their loved ones left on the fateful day MH17 was shot down.

Dutch prosecutors say the missile launcher came from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, a unit of the Russian armed forces based in the Russian city of Kursk and was driven back there after MH17 was shot down.

The suspects aren't accused of firing the missile but of working together to get it to the field where it was fired. They are accused of bringing down the plane and the murder of all those on board.

The most senior defendant is Igor Girkin, a 51-year-old former colonel in Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB. At the time of the downing, he was defense...