Verdict of judge on release secret MH17 documents delayed by 6 weeks!
Dutch government refused to release information about MH17 to the press. A lot of text which was released was made unreable. Dutch newsstations NOS, RTL and Dutch newspaper Volkskrant went to court in February to force the Dutch Government to release the information based on the WOB (kind of Freedom on Information act) law.
The judge in February stated the verdict would be end of March.
However, the court send a letter to NOS/RTL/Volkskrant stating the verdict will be delayed for 6 weeks. So the verdict will now be made public around end of April, beginning of May 2016.
I am pretty sure the judge will decide that the Dutch government will not have to release all the information. There is a lot of secrecy about MH17. I believe the political impact will be too big when information is public.
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If the Dutch media want secret MH17 documents released then they have to apply more pressure than going to court.
The media can report loudly and frequently the questions the government refuses to answer. They can ask questions about the secrecy at every opportunity. They can give more coverage to Dutch families of the victims and to other citizens who are frustrated by the official secrecy. They can make well known the fact that per Dutch intelligence (DSB Final Report Appendix T) the rebels did not have functioning Buk equipment, did not have the necessary training and did not express any intention of shooting down civilian aircraft. They can challenge the initial rush to judgment about who shot down MH17. They can question the validity of sanctions against Russia. They can question the wisdom of bringing Ukraine into the EU.
I don’t follow the Dutch media, but I doubt that they are rocking the boat aggressively. They’ve been more diligent than some other western media, but that isn’t saying much. Filing the court case gives the media the appearance of trying to reveal the secrets, but it doesn’t apply significant pressure to the Dutch government.
Another interesting court case is that of victim relative in ECHR – German victim, as far as I remember. Strangely, but it is being heard in secrecy. Assuming that many of this site commenters are victims’ relatives, I guess you can talk to people involved in these hearings.
Regarding recent visit of CIA head Brennan to Moscow – we can safely guess that Russia was pressed to not say too much. However I believe that info available now is sufficient to see the whole picture, including for legal action.
Sergey, google the lawyer of the relatives “Elmar Giemulla MH17”.
You will get to know more about the strange behavior of the ECHR in this case. There were no hearings yet.
Giemulla is not interested in the culprits. He sues Ukraine for not closing the air-space.