A major inquest will begin in the UK this week into the shooting down of a passenger jet over East Ukraine back in 2014. A total of 298 people died in the tragedy, which has been blamed on pro-Russian separatists.
Among them were five people from the UK, including Ben Pocock, a man from Bristol who was studying at Loughborough University. He had been heading to Australia for six months of travelling, LeicestershireLive reports.
The four other Britons included Richard Mayne, of Leicester, who was just 20 when the flight, MH17, was shot down on July 17, 2014, on a flight path from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Mr Mayne was a former deputy head boy at Dixie Grammar School in Market Bosworth who had gone on to study at Leeds University.
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The other three were 49-year-old Glenn Thomas - a Blackpool-born press officer at the World Health Organization in Geneva - John Alder, 63, and Liam Sweeney, 28, who were both from the Newcastle area and were going to watch their football team on tour.
A Dutch-led investigation named four men as being responsible for shooting down MH17 using a surface-to-air missile. They have all denied involvement and Russia has refused to extradite the men to The Netherlands to stand trial.
The trial began in their absence last autumn at The Hague and it is still ongoing. The inquest into the five men's deaths is due to begin on Friday and be held by the Leicester coroner, Professor Catherine Mason.
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