MH17 verdict: Three pro-Russian troops convicted of murder over deaths of 298 people

All 283 passengers and 15 crew members were killed when the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by Russia-backed separatists. By Adam Solomons, news reporter Three soldiers in a pro-Russian separatist army have been convicted of murder over the deaths of 298 people onboard flight MH17. Russians Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko, were found guilty of 298 counts of murder and "unlawfully causing an airplane to crash" by the Hague District Court at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. They were sentenced to life imprisonment. Fourth defendant Oleg Pulatov was acquitted after the court found he had no prior knowledge of the plan to fire the missile. Nor did he have the authority to overrule Dubinskiy's order to find the missile, the court stated. Compensation totalling €16m (£14m) will also be handed to victims' family members. Prosecutors and the suspects have two weeks to file an appeal against the guilty verdicts. Hague Distr