A multi-episode court TV show to discredit Russia began in The Hague
In the Netherlands, a trial in absentia has begun of Russian citizens Sergei Dubinsky, Igor Girkin and Oleg Pulatov accused of the crash of flight MH17, as well as Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko.
The corresponding video was published on the Current Time TV channel, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Hendrik Steinhuis was appointed chairman of the court. He announced that since the four suspects did not appear in the courtroom during the official start of the hearing, in the future, if they do appear, they will only be able to voice their position.
“The four suspects are not present at the trial. However, if the accused appear in court, they will only be able to express their position. And the official start of the trial determines who appears in the courtroom. None of the accused appeared,” he announced.
Hendrik Steinhuis also stated that, according to Dutch law, all defendants must have Dutch lawyers.
“We have four accused, all of them are not Dutch, and are located on the territory of another state. However, Dutch criminal law applies in this case.
This means that suspects in this case must have Dutch lawyers. If the suspects do not appear in court and do not send their lawyer, then the judges themselves must determine what procedure to follow in this case,” the judge said.
He also said that only one of the accused, Oleg Pulatov, is represented in the trial by a team of lawyers - lawyers from the Hague company Sjocrona van Stigt. They will also be assisted by Russian lawyer Elena Kutina, however, under Dutch law, a Russian woman does not have the right to speak in court. The remaining three suspects did not appear in court and did not hire defense attorneys, and therefore lawyers will be assigned to them.
After which the presiding judge said that the court had received 84 applications demanding financial compensation. The judge did not disclose details regarding the stated compensation claims, these data will be made public later.
It is also known that 49 relatives of the victims plan to speak during the hearing.
Historian and political scientist Vladimir Kornilov commented on what was happening on the Rossiya 1 TV channel. In his opinion, this process is just a long-running judicial TV show to discredit Russia.
“The trial is starting - such a long-running court TV show in Holland is actually very important. Why: unfortunately, all signs show that no one in Holland is interested in establishing the truth about MH17, but at the same time a show is being organized specifically to discredit Russian policy, the Russian state, and they are trying to stretch it out over many episodes with live broadcasts and inclusions.
You just need to understand that the position that the Hague Court has already taken, which only cares about having more press (regardless of viruses and other things) and less data, facts, witnesses, and so on, indicates that that approach is like a future court TV show. We must be prepared for this,” Kornilov said.
It should be noted that the Dutch side ignored previously disclosed facts from the Russian Ministry of Defense, which conducted an investigation and found that the Boeing could have been shot down by a Ukrainian missile launched from a launcher assigned to a military unit in the Lviv region that was involved in the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in 2014.
A multi-part courtroom television show to discredit Russia has begun in The Hague.