Any suspects believed to have brought down the MH17 passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014 will be tried in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has announced.
The Malaysia Airlines flight crashed into a field in the war-torn eastern region of Ukraine on 17 July, 2014, killing all 298 passengers on board. Some 196 of those were Dutch.
The service was travelling from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport to Kuala Lumpur when it was knocked out of the sky. Dutch officials promised prosecutions days after the disaster – but even now they have yet to name any individual suspects.
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement makes repeated references to “the suspects.” It is not clear when or whether officials will name those they believe are responsible for the disaster.
Last year prosecutors named two Russian speakers -Andrei Ivanovich and Nikolai Fyodorovich - whom they wanted to speak with in connection with the crash, but they stopped short of accusing them of direct involvement.
Tjibbe Joustra, the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, told the Volksrant newspaper that actual punishments being handed out to people was unlikely and that suspects were more likely to be convicted and sentenced in their absence.
A report by Dutch air investigators in 2015 concluded that the Boeing 777 was most likely destroyed by a missile fired from a Russian-made Buk launcher. A second international investigation in 2016 said it was fired from a field controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
Investigators struggled to properly access the crash site given that it was in the middle of a war zone. Fragments of airline and the remains of victims were strewn across a huge field, posing a huge challenge to experts trying to piece together what happened.
First responders also struggled initially to deliver families the remains of their loved ones, which initially had to be hauled out of Ukraine on a giant refrigerated train.
Surviving fragments of the aircraft were eventually pieced back together inside a hanger, allowing scientists to establish what may have happened.
Dutch officials swore to launch criminal action against those responsible the day after the crash. But it has taken almost three years for the process to be agreed. An attempt in 2015 to set up an international court to deal with the attack was blocked by Russia.
A statement from the Dutch foreign ministry, published Wednesday morning, said the five countries most involved in the investigation had agreed that the Netherlands was the best location to hold the trials.
The statement said the Joint Investigation Team countries had "decided that the suspects should be prosecuted in the Netherlands, a process that will be rooted in ongoing international cooperation and support."
The JIT consists of Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine, all of which had a significant number of citizens on board.
Below is a breakdown of the nationalities on board, released by Malaysia Airlines in the days after the crash. It is not clear why it does not tally exactly with the later Dutch figure of 196. It is possible that dual nationals could be counted different ways or that those originally listed as unverified have been confirmed as Dutch. Here is the list:
189 Netherlands 44 Malaysia (includes 15 crew members) 27 Australia 12 Indonesia 9 UK 4 Belgium 4 Germany 4 unverified 3 Philippines 1 Canada 1 New Zealand TOTAL: 298