John Helmer: MH17 Court Applies Dutch Law of Finger-Pointing - Guilt by Association if theArchived Message
Posted by sashimi on November 18, 2022, 6:11 pm
- 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.