Dutch court hears testimony from witnesses who saw Buk missile launch before Flight MH17 crash

A Dutch court that hears the case about the crash of the Malaysian Boeing airliner in Donbass in 2014, heard testimonies from witnesses who, as investigators claim, saw the launch of a Buk anti-aircraft rocket in the direction of the passenger plane, BBC Russia reports. 

The witnesses were questioned by representatives of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) and the investigating judge. Eight people said they saw or heard a rocket launch in the sky in the vicinity of the village of Snezhnoe, which remains under the control of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk. Three of the witnesses stated that they were staying in the area of ​​the rocket launch.

At least one other person said that he was staying at the checkpoint of the People's Republic of Donetsk near the village of Pervomayskoye before the crash of the liner. He said that he heard the roaring sound and the sound of an explosion in the sky. The investigating judge looked into the telephone billing data of the witness, which confirmed his whereabouts that day.

In late May, it became known that a court in the Netherlands had completed preliminary proceedings into the case of flight MH17 crash. The judges examined the reconstruction of the Boeing crash site, which was built for the purpose at a Dutch air force base.

Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, Flight MH17, crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. There were 298 people on board, all of them were killed. Investigators accused Russian citizens Igor Girkin (Strelkov), Oleg Pulatov, Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko of involvement in the plane crash. It is believed that they all were involved in the movement of the Buk missile system, from which the liner was supposedly shot down.