MH17 families prepare damages claims against four suspects
A look back at the legal step announced for relatives of the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and at a French espionage arrest reported the same week.
What legal route were the families of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 victims preparing to take on 1 September 2020? Reports from 31 August 2020 said their lawyers intended to seek unspecified damages from the four suspects charged by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service in connection with the disaster.
The claims had not yet been filed. A Dutch District Court was due to determine whether Dutch or Ukrainian law would apply, a question that would shape how the cases proceeded.
The flight
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It was shot down on 17 July 2014 by Russian-backed forces with a Buk 9M38 surface-to-air missile while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Contact with the Boeing 777-200ER was lost about 50 kilometres from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, 40 km from the border. The shoot-down took place during the war in Donbas, over territory held by Russian separatist forces.
A separate espionage case
On 30 August 2020, French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly disclosed that a lieutenant-colonel of the army, stationed at a NATO base in Italy, had been arrested and indicted on charges of spying on behalf of another government. He was reported to have supplied sensitive documents to an officer of the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
