Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: Verdict does ‘nothing’ to bring Kiwi victim’s family justice or closure after three get life sentences for downing of jet over Ukraine

The mother of a Kiwi killed in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 says today’s verdict from a Dutch court convicting two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian separatist of the murders of 298 people does “nothing” to bring justice or closure.

Wellingtonian Robert Ayley, 29, was on board when the plane was shot down in eastern Ukraine in July 2014. Fellow New Zealander Mary Menke, who lived in Australia, also died in the crash.

Ayley’s mother Wendy told Newstalk ZB her grief is a physical deformity and will always be part of her life.

“The verdict changes nothing. I feel guilty saying that because it kind of negates a lot of hard work that a lot of people have done, and their commitment to what they perceive as seeking justice for the families.

“But for us nothing’s changed with the outcome of this trial, and there’s that kind of background insult that the war in escalated from the events of 2014 and is ongoing and more lives are being lost and there’s absolutely nothing to be gained from any of this.”

She shared her sense of loss with others who had been bereaved, for whatever reason.

“When you lose somebody you love you don’t ever really recover from that. That goes for the families of the Ukrainians that have been killed. But it goes for the Russian families as well.

“The Russians that have been killed, fighting for something that they probably didn’t want, they just wanted to get on with their lives, like everybody else.”

She said she is not looking for answers or closure, but that the guns fall silent.

Ayley was heading home to Wellington after a month in Europe when he boarded the flight in Amsterdam bound for Kuala Lumpur. He left behind a wife, Sharlene, and two sons who live in New Zealand.

Her grandsons brought comfort, Wendy Ayley said.

“I look at the boys, I look at my grandsons and I look at the fact they’re growing up and becoming lovely people and that’s what the world should be about.”

The other New Zealander killed in the atrocity, Menke, 65, was returning to her home in Australia with her Dutch-born husband Gerry when the plane was downed.

They were returning home after celebrating his 70th birthday with family and friends in the south of France.

The Dutch court convicted the three in absentia and sentenced them to life imprisonment, while one Russian was acquitted because of a lack of evidence.

Against the geopolitical upheaval caused by Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine this year, the court also held that Moscow in 2014 had overall control of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, from where it said the attack on the plane was launched.

Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said evidence presented by prosecutors at a trial that lasted more than two years proved that the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was brought down by a Buk missile fired by pro-Moscow Ukrainian fighters on July 17, 2014. The crash scattered wreckage and bodies over farmland and fields of sunflowers.

In the courtroom, some families of victims blinked away tears as Steenhuis highlighted how their lives were changed forever on that day.

Steenhuis described the torment of family members who had to wait for the remains of their relatives.

“A piece of bone from a hand. A piece of leg or a foot. In two cases, no parts of a loved one returned.”

Judges and lawyers view the reconstructed wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, at the Gilze-Rijen military Airbase, southern Netherlands, last year. Photo / AP

The three men, who can appeal, did not attend their trial at a tightly guarded courtroom on the edge of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, from where the doomed plane left. Prosecutors had sought life sentences for all four. Prosecutors and the suspects have two weeks to file an appeal.

Hundreds of family members of people killed on the plane travelled to the court to hear the verdict, bringing them back to the airport their loved ones left on the fateful day that MH17 was shot down. Outside the court, planes could be heard taking off and landing nearby on a cold, grey day.

There had been fears that the weight of evidence was impressive but would not necessarily lead to convictions. Steenhuis, however, cited extremely detailed evidence showing where the Buk was fired from, the burns it left on a field, and how it moved around eastern Ukraine. He also went into deep details on the roles of the suspects.

“There is plentiful evidence” to support theory that the missile was shot from the field in rebel-held territory, Steenhuis said.

“There is no reasonable doubt possible,” he added, dismissing defence arguments that something might have happened to the plane.

The court ruled that the three men – Russians Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Ukrainian separatist Leonid Kharchenko — worked together to bring the Buk missile system from a Russian military base into Ukraine and bring it into position for its launch.

And even if the shooting down of MH17 might have amounted to a military miscalculation, Steenhuis said “such an error did not change the intent”.

New Zealander Robert Ayley, who died on Flight MH17, and wife Sharlene had two sons. Photo / Supplied

Relatives said the ruling showed who was responsible for all the deaths on the plane.

“The truth on the table — that is the most important thing,” said Anton Kotte, who lost his son, daughter-in-law and his 6-year-old grandson when MH17 was shot down. He said the hearing was a “D-Day” for relatives.

Robbert van Heijningen, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and nephew, called the downing “an act of barbarism” that he could never put behind him, regardless of the verdict.

“I call it a stone in my heart, and stones ... don’t disappear,” he said.

The most senior official convicted was Girkin, a 51-year-old former colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. At the time of the downing, he was defence minister and commander of the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic — the region in Ukraine where the plane was shot down. Girkin reportedly is currently involved in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

People inspect the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, on July 17, 2014. Photo / AP

Girkin’s subordinates, Dubinskiy and Kharchenko — a Ukrainian who prosecutors say was commander of a pro-Russia rebel combat unit and took orders directly from Dubinskiy — were also convicted and given life sentences.

Russian Oleg Pulatov, the only suspect represented by defence lawyers at the trial, was acquitted.

In a video recording played in court, Pulatov insisted he was innocent and told judges: “What matters to me is that the truth is revealed. It’s important for me that my country is not blamed for this tragedy.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the MH17 court decision was a vital first step in assigning responsibility for the crime but he added that more prosecutions and convictions were needed.

“It is an important decision in the court in The Hague. ... It is necessary that those who ordered it also find themselves in the dock, because impunity leads to new crimes,” he said on Twitter.

A Russian spokesman said Russia was not yet ready to comment on the MH17 convictions.

“We will study this decision. On all of these questions, every nuance has meaning, therefore after studying this judicial document, we will be ready to comment on it,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ivan Nechaev said.

- AP