Two Canberra women whose mother was killed in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over the Ukraine in 2014 will travel to the Netherlands this week to hear the verdicts handed down against four of the alleged perpetrators.
Cassandra Gibson, who now lives in Western Australia, and her sister Chelsea will join the families and loved ones of the 37 other Australian victims in The Hague, where a Dutch court has conducted the murder trial.
Prosecutors have presented a compelling case against one Ukrainian separatist and three Russians who helped supply the Russian Buk missile system which shot down the Boeing 777 civilian flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board.
Liliane Derden grew up in the town of Brascheet in Belgium and then emigrated with her Australian partner to Canberra. She was on her way back to the ACT after visiting family members in Belgium and was on board MH17 when it was was shot down by the surface-to-air missile.
The ACT's deputy chief police officer Peter Crozier has been operations commander for the Australian Federal Police's Operation Arew since 2015 and will travel across to The Netherlands to support the families.
"This is about ensuring, where we can, that we can provide some level of justice for their [the families'] loss," Assistant Commissioner Crozier said.
Given the high loss of Australian lives in the incident, the AFP has been a huge international contributor to the various phases of Operation Arew, from the recovery of bodies in a war-torn region of the Ukraine, the repatriation to Australia, and the significant investigative effort which has followed.
"We provided a very substantial and highly effective brief of evidence which asserts very strongly that these four people were involved in this offence," Assistant Commissioner Crozier said.
He said that there would be about 90 next-of-kin travelling across from Australia.
"What we assume will happen is that there will be a summary of the huge volume of evidence presented, an overview of the findings, and they will give us the verdicts," he said.
As hundreds of next-of-kin from multiple countries including Malaysia, The Netherlands, Germany and Indonesia are attending the handing down of the verdicts, arrangements will be in place where the families will be able to watch the proceedings via video link from a location separate to the court.
"It's a big undertaking but we've practised this previously and we have facilities which will be allow them [the families] to witness what's going and to have plenty of support there," he said.
The AFP has been providing all the families with annual updates on the investigation and will take six Family Investigation Liaison Officers across to provide support.
