- Perpetrator Is Russian, Innocence by Association if Prosecutor Is Dutch or Ukrainian

Where's that long promised US radar data?

(quote)
In 16,000 words of Steenhuis's ruling, Kiev is not mentioned at all; nor
Washington; nor the Ukrainian President at the time, Petro Poroshenko (lead
image, rear centre); nor US government financing, arms and other aid to the
military operations in the Donbass.

By contrast, President Vladimir Putin, his advisor Vladislav Surkov (picture on
table), and other "high-ranking persons in the Russian Federation", are named by
the judge as having "provided for financing of the DPR, the supply and training
of men and the supply of weapons and goods. In addition, since mid-May 2014,
the Russian Federation has had a decisive influence on the filling of high
positions within the DPR and has interfered in the coordination of military
actions and also taken military actions on Ukrainian territory."

For evidence of the murder weapon, the judge announced that he accepts a single
piece of warhead shrapnel shaped like a bow tie (centre of table), which he said
had been recovered from the body of a cockpit crew member. That discovery by
Ukrainian and Dutch state investigators has remained undocumented and the chain
of custody of the fragment unverified. Steenhuis had no explanation for the
disappearance of all 2,600 other pieces of bow-tie shrapnel in the missile
warhead alleged to have exploded against the MH17 cockpit.

According to the Dutch Criminal Procedure Code at Section 344a : "[a judge] may
not find that there is evidence the defendant committed the offence as charged
in the indictment exclusively or to a decisive extent on the basis of written
materials containing statements of persons whose identity is concealed."

As the law to warrant the three convictions, the acquittal of Lieutenant-Colonel
Oleg Pulatov, three life prison sentences, and award of €16 million in
compensation, Steenhuis introduced a Dutch Supreme Court concept called
"functional co-perpetration". Dutch and international lawyers acknowledge this
is guilt by association. They note that in international, North American and
British law, this cannot be proven with a witness testifying in secret; with
evidence gathered by a secret chain of custody and tested in secret; without
cross-examination of experts in open court; and by hearsay of one judge
referring to another investigating judge whose identity and proceedings have
also remained secret.

There is "no possibility of reasonable doubt whatsoever", Judge Steenhuis
declared in his summing-up.

"Joint criminal responsibility is an idea the Americans tried to use at the
Yugoslav and Rwanda war crimes tribunals thirty years ago - it's bogus law",
commented Christopher Black, a Canadian attorney who represented defendants
accused in those proceedings.

"By acquitting Pulatov, the only defendant to be represented in court," comments
Dutch jurisprudence expert Alfred Vierling, "the court has done its best to
hinder the convicted defendants from taking higher court proceedings to
challenge the law and the convictions in the Court of Appeal."
(/quote)
-- Cont'd at http://johnhelmer.net/mh17-court-applies-dutch-law-of-finger-pointing-guilt-by-association-if-the-perpetrator-is-russian-innocence-by-association-if-prosecutor-is-dutch-or-ukrainian/