AMSTERDAM: As someone once closely involved in the case, Dutch Safety Board member Marjolein van Asselt will be following the upcoming MH17 trial with interest.
The board, which was tasked with investigating the cause of the crash, concluded in Oct 2015 that the Boeing 777 was shot down by a BUK surface-to-air missile system.
It excluded the possibility of any other cause, saying in its report that: “No other scenario can explain this combination of factors.”
While it is not involved in criminal investigations and board members cannot be called as expert witnesses during the trial, van Asselt will be keeping abreast of developments on a personal level with "mixed feelings".
"The trial will not bring back those killed that day. It will not undo harm.
"It will instead re-open all the feelings loved ones experienced on the day of the tragedy."
She stressed, however, that the board's work was done and that she and her colleagues are now merely "normal citizens" where the trial is concerned.
The board's 279-page report did not address who fired the weapon, nor who ordered the destruction of so many people on a routine Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014.
Van Asselt explained that the board's role is not to assign blame, but to improve safety regulations, especially for aircraft flying over conflict zones, and prevent a recurrence.
Ron Smits, MH17 recovery and reconstruction operations coordinator, said the board's job was to figure out what happened that fateful day.
"We put in a lot of effort to make clear what the cause was."
He reiterated that the board is "very sure of its conclusion".
Gijsbert Vogelaar, the board's MH17 investigator in charge, praised the Malaysian team that retrieved the plane's two black boxes from war-torn eastern Ukraine.
"The recovery was helpful. It was the main thing for us."
The team that was tasked with entering eastern Ukraine covertly to secure the two black boxes was led by Colonel Mohd Sakri Hussin.
Vogelaar said a Malaysia Airlines pilot and several crew members were invited to listen to the recording to assist in investigations.
“It was very hard for them but they listened to it and helped us,” he said.
The MH17 trial will commence at 10am (5pm Malaysian time) on Monday at the heavily-secured Schiphol Judicial Court (JCS) complex in Badhoevedorp here.
MH17 took off on July 17, 2014 on its ill-fated journey to Kuala Lumpur.
On trial will be four suspects identified by the Netherlands' Public Prosecution Service – Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko. They are not expected to be present.