Netherlands

HAGUE, March 30. /TASS/: Almost 12,000 people contracted the coronavirus in the Netherlands, the National Institute of Health and Environment reported Monday, adding that more than 800 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours.

According to the latest Dutch statistical data, the coronavirus was confirmed in 11,750 people; of those, 4,000 people receive treatment in hospitals; 864 people succumbed to the disease, including 93, who died in the past 24 hours.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The trial in the Netherlands of four men accused of murder over the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 will continue behind closed doors later this month due to the coronavirus outbreak, the court said on Tuesday.

Pre-trial hearings in the case against three Russians and one Ukrainian began in Amsterdam last week. Prosecutors allege that the defendants helped to arrange the Russian missile system used to shoot down the civilian aircraft, killing all onboard. Of the 298 victims, most were Dutch.

AMSTERDAM, March 10 (NNN-BERNAMA) — As expected, none of the four men accused of shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 as it flew over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, turned up at the District Court of The Hague here Monday to face the criminal charges preferred against them. 

In his opening remarks, Judge Hendrik Steenhuis who presided over a three-man bench, said the prosecutor had made all possible attempts to serve the summons on them. 

The four accused are Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The families of people killed when a missile shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 set out 298 white chairs outside the Russian Embassy on Sunday in a silent protest against Moscow’s lack of cooperation in the investigation into the downing of the passenger jet.

The chairs — laid out in rows like seats in an airplane — represented the victims who died when a Buk missile fired from territory held by pro-Russia separatist rebels shot down the Amsterdam-to-Kuala Lumpur flight on July 17, 2014, killing everybody on board.

AMSTERDAM, March 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Four fugitive suspects go on trial in the Netherlands on Monday charged with the murder of 298 passengers and crew aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 which was shot down with a Russian-made missile over eastern Ukraine in July 2014.

Wreckage of the Boeing 777 fell to the ground in fields surrounding the Ukrainian village of Hrabove in territory held by pro-Russian separatists fighting Ukrainian government forces.

The jet was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was hit by a surface-to-air missile. There were no survivors.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Judges at the International Criminal Court on Thursday ruled that an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, Afghan military and U.S. forces may proceed.

The decision, which comes days after the United States agreed to pull its troops from the long-running conflict, overturns a lower court decision and opens the way for prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to launch a full investigation, despite U.S. government opposition.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Twice as many companies set up operations in the Netherlands in 2019 compared to a year earlier as Britain’s departure from the European Union neared, a Dutch government agency said on Wednesday.

Last year, 78 businesses chose to open offices or move operations to the Benelux country, taking the total number since the British referendum in 2016 to 140, the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency said.

“The trend has been a doubling each year of the number of companies coming to the Netherlands,” said Jeroen Nijland, commissioner at NFIA.

THE HAGUE, February 18. /TASS/: The Hague Court of Appeal overturned a previous decision of the district court and announced that Russia is obliged to pay more than $50 bln to former shareholders of Yukos. This is according to the documents published on the court’s website on Tuesday.

AMSTERDAM, Feb 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A letter bomb caught fire at a bank in Amsterdam on Thursday and another was disarmed at an office near Utrecht, the latest in a series of such attacks in the Netherlands this week.

No-one was hurt in the incident at an Amsterdam branch of ING Bank, a spokeswoman for the bank said, although police said one person had inhaled smoke.

“It did not explode, it caught fire,” said police spokesman Rob van der Veen.

THE HAGUE, Feb 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Netherlands has turned down an offer by Russia to prosecute three men suspected of involvement in the 2014 downing of a passenger jet over eastern Ukraine, the Dutch justice minister said.

Ferd Grapperhaus said Moscow sent a letter in October last year in which it asked whether the Dutch would consider transferring the criminal prosecution of three suspects to Russia.