Australian Government imposes travel bans and sanctions on three accused of MH17 downing

Australian Government imposes travel bans and sanctions on three accused of MH17 downing
Edited by Travel Weekly


    Australia has handed down sanctions and travel bans to three men found to be involved in the downing of MH17 in 2014 by the Hague court in the Netherlands.

    MH17 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was hit by a surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine.

    A total of 298 passengers perished when MH17 was hit and crashed in the Donbas region of Ukraine, including 27 Australians and one New Zealander.

    In February this year, an international court linked Vladimir Putin to the incident, claiming the Russian leader supplied the weapon, although did not directly link him to ordering the missile to be fired on the plane.

    New sanctions have been imposed on two of the men convicted over the attack, Sergey Dubinskiy and Leonid Kharchenko, as well as Sergey Muchkaev, a colonel with the Russian Armed Forces, and the commander of the anti-aircraft missile brigade that directly supplied the weapon.

    A third man, Igor Girkin, who was also convicted alongside Dubinskiy and Kharchenko, was sanctioned in 2014 for supporting separatist activity in the volatile eastern Ukraine region.

    Both the Coalition and Labor governments have supported efforts (led by the Netherlands) to secure prosecutions for the attack and to hold Russia accountable for the deaths of nearly 300 people.

    Girkin Dubinskiy and Karchenko all received life prison sentences, however, are believed to be living freely in Russia, and are unlikely to ever serve their sentences, or pay the 16 million euro (AUD$28.8m) in compensation they were ordered to pay.

    The sanctions are likely to be the latest diplomatic stressor between the Australian and Russian governments.

    The high court in Canberra will soon hear an appeal launched by the Russian embassy in Canberra after the Australian government stripped the lease of a prized block of land from the Russian embassy, preventing the build of a new site.

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