Prosecutors in the Netherlands have asked the Ukrainian authorities not to give Russia a detained militant who may be a witness or a suspect in the 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which killed 298 people.
Volodymyr Tsemakh, a pro-Russian militant arrested in June, remains in Ukrainian custody after a Kyiv court prolonged his arrest, his lawyer told the Ukrainian media on Sept. 3.
Ukrainian media have speculated, citing unnamed sources, that Russia wanted to get Tsemakh as part of a long-anticipated mass prisoner exchange with Ukraine. The exchange was expected to happen in late August, but was postponed.
NRC Handelsblad, the leading newspaper in the Netherlands, also wrote that President Volodymyr Zelensky initially agreed to exchange Tsemakh, but was advised not to give up the MH17 suspect.
Zelensky’s press secretary Iuliia Mendel, told the Kyiv Post that the presidential office can’t comment on the process of prisoner exchange, during ongoing talks.
Who is Volodymyr Tsemakh?
Tsemakh, who fought against Ukraine on the side of the Russian-backed militants, is charged with terrorism. But his arrest is likely linked to his role in the July 2014 downing of the Malaysian Airlines airplane.
The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprised of investigative agencies from several countries investigating the plane’s downing, found that the Boeing was shot down by a Russian-made Buk missile.
At the time, Tsemakh was the commander of the militants’ air defense unit in Snizhne, a town in the Russian-occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, near which the MH17 plane was downed.
Later, Tsemakh said on local TV that he helped get the Buk missile carrier back to Russia, presumably after it shot down the Boeing.
Netherlands involvement
Tsemakh’s arrest in Ukraine was prolonged days after Dutch prosecutors reached out to the Ukrainian authorities to ask them to keep him in custody.
Fred Westerbake, the Prosecutor General of the Netherlands and head officer of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), stated that Tsemakh was a suspect in the case, according to NRC Handelsblad.
Previously, investigators disclosed the names of four suspects in the MH17 attack, three Russians and one Ukrainian. Tsemakh wasn’t among them.
On Sept. 2, Ukrainian news website The Babel published a leaked letter from Dutch prosecutors, dated Aug. 30. In it, Westerbake asks Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office not to extradite Tsemakh. Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported that it had confirmed the letter’s authenticity.
According to Westerbake, it is “of paramount importance” that Tsemakh “remains available” for “(further) interrogation.”
The Dutch prosecutor general’s comments were provoked by information that Moscow was demanding the extradition of Tsemakh as part of a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia.
Prisoner exchange
Ukraine and Russia have been negotiating their first large-scale prisoner swap, which may include high-profile political prisoners such as Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, Volodymyr Balukh, Pavlo Hryb, and Mykola Karpyuk, as well as the 24 Ukrainian sailors captured by Russia in the Kerch Strait in November 2018.
“I’m personally working on this issue,” Zelensky told journalists on Aug. 23. He added that “the first results should be seen in the coming days.”
However, the exchange has not yet taken place.
Former lawmaker Mustafa Nayyem and journalist Yuriy Butusov each wrote on Aug. 31 that Moscow wants Tsemakh to be part of the group exchange.
