It will be a trial in absentia. More than five years after the tragedy, and despite the absence of the four people accused of detonating flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, the Netherlands opened their first hearing on Monday March 9.

During the crash, 196 Dutch and 102 other passengers were killed on July 17, 2014 aboard the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, departing from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur. The aircraft was hit in mid-flight by a Soviet-designed BUK missile over the area of ​​armed conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The first suspects to be charged in this case are the Russians Sergei Doubinsky, Igor Guirkine and Oleg Poulatov, as well as the Ukrainian Leonid Khartchenko, four senior officers of the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

They are accused by the Dutch prosecution of having conveyed the BUK anti-aircraft missile system, before it was fired by other unidentified people.

Russia and Ukraine do not extradite their nationals prosecuted abroad, the four men are not expected at the hearings which begin Monday at 10:00 am in the court of Schiphol, in the suburbs of Amsterdam. The trial is expected to last more than a year.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday that the court's work is "completely independent".

"An accusatory bias towards Russia"

The international team of investigators, led by the Netherlands, established in May 2018 that the plane had been shot down by a missile from the 53rd Russian anti-aircraft brigade based in Kursk (south-west).

Following these revelations, the Netherlands and Australia, of which 38 nationals died in the tragedy, openly blamed the deaths of their nationals on Russia.

Moscow has always vehemently denied any involvement in the crash, and blamed the blame on Kiev. Russian diplomacy spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the Netherlands of trying to "pressure the Dutch court" on Friday, citing a "media campaign characterized by accusatory bias towards Russia".

The four accused face life imprisonment.

With AFP

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