Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof pledged Wednesday in front of the emotional relatives of the victims, dressed in black, to continue to hunt down those responsible for the crash of flight MH17, ten years after the tragedy.
Dutch courts sentenced three men in absentia in 2022 to life in prison for their role in the crash: two Russians and a Ukrainian. But Moscow has refused to extradite suspects and has consistently denied any involvement.
And last year, international investigators suspended their investigation, saying there was insufficient evidence to pursue more suspects.
“We remain united in our fight for justice. That’s what drives us,” Dick Schoof nevertheless declared in front of hundreds of relatives and dignitaries.
Families of the 298 people killed gathered at a memorial site near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, lined with sunflowers, as was the Ukrainian field strewn with bodies and debris after the crash.
The plane took off from the Netherlands on a beautiful summer day, July 17, 2014, bound for Kuala Lumpur.
Hours later, the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was shot down by a Russian-made missile over territory held by pro-Russian separatists. All on board were killed.
“We all know that a conviction is not the same as someone being behind bars,” Schoof said, adding that “justice requires that we be prepared” to fight “for the long haul.”
“And we are. We have the time, the patience and the perseverance. That is my message to the guilty and my promise to the relatives,” he said.
Tears
Many of those close to them were in tears as the names of the victims, including 196 Dutch, 43 Malaysians and 38 Australians, were read out one by one.
The victims’ families have little hope of ever seeing the perpetrators behind bars.
“I don’t think those responsible will serve their sentences,” Evert van Zijtveld told AFP.
The man, who lost his 19-year-old daughter Frédérique, his 18-year-old son Robert-Jan and his in-laws in the crash, was having “a difficult day” on Wednesday.
International investigators concluded there were “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the supply of the missile that brought down the plane.
Moscow has vehemently rejected the 2022 court verdict, calling it “political” and “scandalous.”
“We were not involved in the investigation and therefore our attitude to these findings is well known,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
The European Union has once again called on Moscow to “accept its responsibility in this tragedy.”
“Russia’s responsibility for this atrocity is inevitable,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X.
“All those guilty of this and other Russian war crimes will undoubtedly hear the verdicts they deserve,” he added.
But the three men convicted in the Netherlands have refused to take part in the legal proceedings and deny any role in the tragedy.
And with Moscow refusing to extradite any suspects, citing Russian law, it is unlikely that the convicts will ever serve their sentences.
“Not totally free”
“The invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of the war make it really hard to believe that any of them will be arrested soon,” said Evert van Zijtveld.
There have been “ten years of endless proceedings in which the responsible state has only obstructed” the investigation, said Piet Ploeg, president of the victims’ families association. “Ten years of fighting against Russia’s denials and its total indifference to the suffering caused,” he added.
Driekske Bakker, 71, who lost her brother and sister-in-law in the tragedy, said she was “glad that at least there was a trial and that they (the convicts) cannot leave Russia.”
They are “therefore not totally free,” she told AFP.