Although the Russians’ previous requests were rejected and the couple were threatened with deportation to the country, the lawyer representing them eventually received confirmation of their clients’ right to remain in the Netherlands.
The Russians had to provide the Dutch services with critical information regarding the downing of a Malaysian Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.
Initially, the IND did not consider their story credible and rejected asylum applications three times. According to de Volkskrant, the intelligence was concerned about the fate of the couple and, according to the newspaper, pressured the Immigration and Naturalization Service to issue a positive decision.
The downed flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. At the time, 298 people were killed, including 193 Dutch. The machine was shot down by pro-Russian separatists using a Buk surface-to-air missile.
On Wednesday, the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office demanded life imprisonment for four men suspected of shooting down a plane. According to investigators, Russians Sergei Dubinsky, Igor Girkin, Oleg Potatov and Ukrainian Leonid Kharkzenko occupied key positions in the rebel forces fighting in eastern Ukraine. All four are in Russia. The verdict in the trial of the downing of the plane, which has been in operation since March 2020, will not come before the fall of 2022.
Source: niezalezna.pl, PAP
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