A Dutch court convicted three men and acquitted one on Thursday over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 above Ukraine in 2014, as tensions soar over Russia’s invasion eight years later.
Russians Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko “are found guilty” of murder and intentionally causing an aircraft to crash, while Russian Oleg Pulatov was not guilty, head judge Hendrik Steenhuis said.
The first three were sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia.
None of the suspects was at the high-security court in the Netherlands for the verdict, while dozens of families travelled around the world to hear the judgment after a two-and-a half-year trial.
All 298 passengers on board the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed when the plane was hit by a missile, fired by what judges said were Russian-controlled separatists as it flew over eastern Ukraine.
Prosecutors have demanded life sentences for the suspects although the men are unlikely to serve time if convicted.
