"The court, answering the question of whether the interrogation of an American expert, who apparently works for the American authorities, can provide new information than what is already known in the case and taking into account the responses of the US authorities dated 21 January this year and 22 April, which refer to a previously provided memorandum, the court considered that his interrogation would not help to obtain new information, therefore this request should be rejected", Steenhuis said.
The court also rejected the defence request for questioning Russian arms industry company Almaz-Antey experts in the MH17 case.
The defence team of Russian citizen Oleg Pulatov appealed to the court with a request to interrogate an American expert who co-authored a memorandum on satellite images, which allegedly recorded a missile launch on flight MH17.
The Malaysian Boeing bound to Kuala Lumpur crashed in July 2014 while flying over a conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard. An international group of investigators claims that the plane was downed by a Buk missile belonging to the Russian armed forces. Moscow has denied the allegations on multiple occasions. Though Russia offered help with the investigation, it was denied access to the probe.