The MH17 defense pleadings continues today. Defense is trying to add uncertainty to the prosecution findings that (1) the maximum range of a BUK is 36km, thus no Ukrainian launch site would have been possible, and (2) that all sites within this range were in militants& #39; control.

Defense argues the maximum range is 45-55 km, and blames JIT for taking the Russia-provided maximum range of 36km "while in other cases JIT ignores Russian data" (hard to believe this comes from a lawyer - doctrine says to trust data that doesn& #39;t serve party providing it)

Defense tries to bring back Zaroschenske as a possible launch site because "2 out of 3 expert calculations did not calculate a launch site that overlaps with the JIT-accepted site" (A big stretch. The Belgian institute computed a range that is literally adjacent to launch site)

(and the "3rd" expert - the only one with the odd launch area - is Russia& #39;s state-owned Almaz Antey )

Interesting new line of defense: the militants "assumed the airspace is closed and thus didn& #39;t think they might shoot down a commercial plane". Per Dutch law, this would only be a mitigating, not exculpating factor