The Dutch court handling the trial of four suspects in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on Thursday said Russia had overall control of the separatist forces in eastern Ukraine at the time when the plane was shot down.
"From half May 2014 Russia had so called overall control over the People's Republic of Donetsk," presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis said referring to the region where the passenger flight was show down on July 17, 2014.
In the ongoing ruling, the court had earlier said the plane was shot down by a Russian-made missile.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, Toby Sterling and Bart Meijer; Editing by Toby Chopra)
