Volodymyr Tsemakh suspect in MH17 crash released by Ukraine court

Volodymyr Tsemakh, a Ukrainian citizen who may be a witness or a suspect in the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 has been released by a court in Ukraine.

The man has been released on bail while the further investigations are pending.

A judge said that Volodymyr Tsemakh, whom Ukraine's security service has identified as a former commander of Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, should be released from custody immediately, pending further investigations

Tsemakh was reportedly taken into custody in late June by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) from Snizhne, a town in the Russian-occupied part of Donetsk Oblast. He was formally charged with terrorism by a Ukrainian court. At the time when the crash occured, Tsemakh was the commander of a separatist air defense unit based in Snizhne.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014 while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed.

Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 km from Ukraine–Russia border and wreckage of the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km from the border.

The shoot-down occurred in the War in Donbass, during the Battle of Shakhtarsk, in an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels. The crash was Malaysia Airlines' second aircraft loss during 2014 after the disappearance of Flight 370 on 8 March.