Verdicts in MH17 Crash Case to Be Announced by End of 2022, Judge Rules

SCHIPOL, the Netherlands (Sputnik) - Verdicts in the case of the MH17 airplane crash in Ukraine's east may be handed down on 22 September, 17 November or 15 December, 2022, presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis said on Monday.

"We plan to finish considering the case in June 2022. In legal proceedings, decisions are usually announced two weeks later. However, it is impossible in case of lengthy proceedings like this one. So, the trial will not be completed in June 2022. It is impossible to forecast how much time we will need to hand down the verdicts. So, the court is considering three dates when this could be done: 22 September, if the court does not manage to do it on this date, then on 17 November and  15 December 2022 is our third option," Steenhuis said at the hearings.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down on 17 July, 2014, in eastern Ukraine on its way to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam.

All 298 people on board died. The trial of four suspects — Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko — began in March 2020 in the Netherlands.