Witness Jit

Member of the process on the death of the Malaysian Boeing over Donbass Vadim Lukashevich - about the upcoming session of the court

The hearing in the case of the crash in 2014 in the east of Ukraine of the Boeing Malaysian - the MH17 flight - resumed on June 8 in the Court of Jipphol in the Netherlands. They were postponed for several months due to the pandemic of coronavirus, and now court hearings are held in a limited composition. One of the witnesses of the prosecution Vadim Lukashevich, who, unlike many others, is not classified and appears under his name, told the “new” that is now happening on the process.

- As a witness to the court in Amsterdam, the joint investigative group (JIT) attracted me. I am not a participant in events, but JIT had a number of questions to me as an expert. I formulated answers to the questions for the protocol for several days in a row for eight hours a day, often during an expert discussion. All of them are formally recorded as evidence. I answered about 90–95% of the questions. The experience is very interesting: I saw how my testimony is applied, where my assessment fell in the case.

This is work for real justice, my conscience is pure.

I have my own personal code, like all participants in the process. But, since in all the materials of the case I pass under my surname, I do not use this code anywhere.

Now there is a kind of inventory of the process. And if everything went according to plan, as before the pandemic, one could already consider alternative versions of events. At recent meetings in March, the charge filed a number of petitions and asked the lawyers to determine their position. The problem is that all the interrogations of the accused, including Pulatov ( Oleg “Gyurza” Pulatov - according to the international investigation, assistant Igor Strelkov, at that time - the Minister of Defense of the self -proclaimed “DPR” and the only accused who has protection on the process - ed. ) Are carried out under a difficult procedure under the legal assistance agreement between the European Union and Russia -

Each request moves at least two months.

The prosecutor's office demanded that you apply for interrogations of all defense witnesses. It is necessary to give authority to the investigating judge so that he can satisfy these applications, and most importantly - the protection must decide on the position.

The fact is that over five years of work, the investigation received a lot of documents. Not all of them went into business. And there may be materials in favor of the accused Pulatov.

And the accusation said that it was ready to give access to any documents if they want to use them. But for this, the defenders themselves must explain their line:

For example, the denial of his involvement, the presence of an alibi, a statement about the falsification of the wiretaps of telephone conversations, and so on. In addition, the defense has not yet announced how Pulatov would testify: right in court, through lawyers from home, through a television conference or in some other way. He can testify to the Russian Investigative Committee, lawyers may come to Russia (Russian and Dutch lawyers Pulatov are in close interaction) or the investigating judge himself. Each decision takes at least two months.

Therefore, in March, the court asked to complete these formalities faster so that in September it could be launched on the merits. Without this understanding, the next session may not begin.

Only Pulatov has official defense, the other three of the accused were eliminated, but any of their public statements are a demonstration of positions for the court. This is specially monitored.

Each of them also asked questions. And Girkin’s recent statement that the Boeing militias were not shot down is considered his response to the court.

For Pulatov, all reports on intercepted telephone conversations were specially transferred. The prosecution notified him that it was ready to translate any other documents. But what exactly is interested in the protection of 30,000 pages of the indictment as mandatory parts of the part, is still unknown. On the basis of European legal norms at the request of protection, they can even begin to translate absolutely all a huge array of case. On March 10, the court, which managed to launch the basic procedures requiring a long time, asked for protection to resolve these issues by this June session. But the defense said that in two months she did not have time to get acquainted with the case properly: they say, the investigation worked for six years, and they were given such a short time. In addition, lawyers decided to go to Russia to interrogate Pulatov themselves, but could not do this due to restrictions due to pandemic.

It should be noted another requirement of the prosecutor's office. According to their statements, it is impossible to consider the cases of all four accused by a single block. Pulatov is the only one who has lawyers and has all the protection tools, including demanding interrogations, confrontations, examinations. Since the other three cannot do this, the process will go at different speeds. Therefore, the court divided them, but the decision will be issued in all. Protection did not state its position on such a division.

The main version of the prosecution is known - the Russian Buk was transported to Pervomaisky, from where he made a fatal shot.

They examined and rejected all alternative versions: an explosion on board, an attack of an unknown aircraft, an attack by the Ukrainian complex “Buk” and the launch of the air defense missile of another system. All these versions remained inside the indictment, so that the defense could return to them and consider them again using all the available documents that the accused was kindly offered to translate. The prosecutor was ready to consider alternative versions in pre -trial hearings. The defense was silent, but the actions when considering these versions may require new examinations and much more. Thus,

It is quite obvious to me that the defense has embarked on the path of tightening the process.

And now the judge must decide whether to transfer the session or not.

As they explained to me, the prosecutor's office did not stop the investigation. We can expect the appearance of the surname and other Russian troops in the case.