KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 — The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) today commended the conviction of three men of murder for their role in the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by a Dutch court yesterday.

In a statement, the PMO said that it was satisfied with the judicial process throughout the trial, which it had found to be reliable and transparent.

"Even though nothing can give back the lives of the victims or reduce the grief and the suffering experienced by their families and loved ones, hopefully the court's decision yesterday will to some extent be able to provide relief and peace to the victims’ families and next of kin,” read the statement.

The PMO also expressed its gratitude to the Joint Investigation Team consisting of the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine, which had investigated the tragedy.

MH17 was a passenger flight that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

The three men convicted of the crime were former Russian intelligence agents Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader.

All three were sentenced to life in prison.

A fourth, Russian Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted on all charges.