The ruling issued on July 3 by Dutch district court judge Hendrik Steenhuis (lead image, right)
requires the Russian defendant, Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Pulatov (centre), to prove his innocence with evidence prepared by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). By the standard announced a month earlier by the Russian Foreign Ministry, this is a fundamental violation of Pulatov's legal rights, making a guilty verdict inevitable.
Russian and international lawyers believe the defence lawyers should walk out. "In the conditions which the Dutch court has set," comments Canadian Christopher Black, a veteran litigator in international war crimes trials, "
this is now nothing more than the Ukrainian civil war fought by the Kiev regime with lawyers instead of soldiers. It's a show trial. Nothing more than propaganda. No legal right for the accused is served by having his lawyers present. Since the defendants have refused to appear in person - three of them disputing the Dutch jurisdiction — the defence lawyers should withdraw."
The wording of the formal indictment charges Pulatov and three co-defendants with the crime of intentional homicide, according to this release by the prosecution on
March 9. The text of the Dutch summons,
issued to Pulatov last October, is more ambiguous,
raising the scepticism of international lawyers that the Dutch themselves aren't convinced they can make their case under their own criminal code. For legal analysis of the Dutch criminal law which is being applied in the MH17 case, read
this.
"The charges are vague when they should be specific," Black comments. "Any defence lawyer would complain that it is not a proper indictment. In the [Anglo-American] common law when a charge is vague like that the defence can demand 'particulars' — that is, details of the specific acts which the accused are alleged to have committed, so that the defence can be prepared."
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