Dutch prosecutors to demand sentences for MH17 suspects

Dutch prosecutors will this week set out their sentencing demands for four men on trial in absentia over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in war-torn Ukraine in 2014. Prosecutors will also formally present the indictment during three days of hearings from Monday, charging the men with the murders of all 298 people on the Boeing 777. The four suspects -- Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko -- have all refused to attend the trial in the Netherlands. A verdict at the high-security court, near Amsterdam's Schiphol airport where MH17 took off on its doomed flight to Kuala Lumpur, is not expected until late 2022 at the earliest. "The maximum penalty is life imprisonment," a court spokesperson told AFP. The hearings come as fresh tensions soar over Ukraine, with the West accusing Moscow of planning an invasion. International investigators say MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile originally brought from a Russian military base as it flew over part of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Moscow separatists on July 17, 2014. The court spokesperson said prosecutors would spend Monday and Tuesday explaining evidence including telephone and electronic eavesdropping, the circumstances surrounding the missile, and the defendants themselves. The sentencing demand is expected to follow on Wednesday and will include an "extensive justification of the requested penalty", the spokesperson said.<br/>