MH17 trial: Court in silence as prosecutor reads out names of victims
MH17 TRIAL | It was like the time just stopped for some 20 minutes during the first day of the criminal trial into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on Monday, when a Dutch public prosecutor read out the names of all 298 victims who perished in the July 17, 2014, incident.
There was a heavy silence in the courtroom when the full names of the men, women and children were listed one-by-one by deputy public prosecutor Dedy Woei-A-Tsoi, as she read out the full charges against four men accused of murdering them...
MH17 TRIAL | It was like the time just stopped for some 20 minutes during the first day of the criminal trial into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on Monday, when a Dutch public prosecutor read out the names of all 298 victims who perished in the July 17, 2014, incident.
There was a heavy silence in the courtroom when the full names of the men, women and children were listed one-by-one by deputy public prosecutor Dedy Woei-A-Tsoi, as she read out the full charges against four men accused of murdering them.
"Consequence of the action of the defendants was the death of …," she said at the start.
"...Sanjit Singh Sandhu Bobby, Hamfazlin Sham Arifin, Nur Shazana Mohamed Salleh, Angeline Premila Rajandran, Liam Davison...," were some of the names of Malaysian victims read out by Woei-A-Tsoi, who stopped for a bit to take a sip of water before continuing.
Throughout the time the names were read, there was a pin drop silence, including among the attorneys present in court.
Some were even seen looking down in sombre mood, or as presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis put it, they appeared to be lost in their thoughts.
"Consequences of this case, the impact almost inconceivable.
"Heavy silence when the names being read out, makes it abundantly clear that everybody sitting here are lost in their thoughts," the judge said before calling for the court to break for lunch.
According to the charges read out by Woei-A-TsoiThis, three former Russian military officers and a Ukrainian are accused of shooting down the aircraft and murdering all the passengers and crew on board.
They are charged under the Dutch Criminal Code for the alleged offences, which each carry life imprisonment or a determinate jail sentence of a maximum 30 years.
The incident at East Ukraine saw the flight carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members shot down by a Russian-made Buk missile system as the aircraft flew over a conflict area.
The victims were of 10 nationalities, with Netherlandanders the most number of casualties at 193, followed by Malaysians (43), and Australians (27).
An international joint investigation team identified the four suspects as being responsible with the incident.
During the start of the trial on Monday morning, Steenhuis had said the Netherlands Public Prosecution Services has submitted a case file of over 36,000 pages and an "enormous amount" of digital evidence.
Report this comment
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
This action cannot be undone.