International investigators are set to launch criminal proceedings against the people suspected of shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine nearly five years ago.
The Dutch-led international team tasked with assigning criminal responsibility for the mid-air attack on the plane will inform victims’ families of the progress in their case on Wednesday morning, and make a presentation to the media afterwards.
Dutch broadcasters RTL and NOS reported late last week that investigators would name individual suspects.
An Interfax Ukraine report on Tuesday quoted Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Olena Zerkal in an interview as saying prosecutors would name the four “top” suspects.
MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014 over territory held by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 people on board, most of them Dutch, were killed.
A joint investigation team formed by Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine found that the plane was shot down by a Russian missile.
