The SBU Security Service of Ukraine has put Volodymyr Tsemakh, a suspect in the MH17 downing probe, on the wanted list.
The relevant information has been posted on the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The date of disappearance is defined as September 23, 2019.
Tsemakh is suspected of being a member of a terrorist group and committing a terrorist act that resulted in casualties.
He is wanted as a person hiding from the investigating authorities.
Read alsoDutch prosecutors accuse Russia of deliberate refusing to extradite MH17 suspect Tsemakh
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine's spec-ops forces managed to detain Tsemakh, who is a citizen of Ukraine, in the Russia-occupied town of Snizhne in late June 2019. He was reportedly a commander of an anti-aircraft unit in occupied Donbas back in 2014 and is suspected by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies of involvement in the downing of flight MH17 over Donbas in July 2014. He is also suspected of involvement in a terrorist attack, which killed four Ukrainian soldiers.
In late August, Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins suggested that Tsemakh was on a list of detainees prepared for a major Ukraine-Russia prisoner swap.
On September 5, Kyiv's Court of Appeals ruled to release Tsemakh on personal recognizance. Under a court ruling, he was supposed not to leave his place of permanent residence in Russia-occupied Donbas.
On September 7, Tsemakh was transferred to Russia as part of a major prisoner swap, as a result of which 24 Ukrainian sailors and 11 Ukrainian political prisoners returned home.
Later it became known that he had returned to the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic."
On September 7, the Dutch Prosecutor's Office sent a request to the Russian authorities for Tsemakh's temporary arrest for further extradition to the Netherlands.
On September 11, the Netherlands changed Tsemakh's status from a key witness to a suspect.
