The suspended MH17 probe – RT World News
International investigation team says it cannot determine who operated the missile that shot down the Malaysian Boeing
Investigators behind the criminal probe into the July 2014 downing of Malaysian flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine said on Wednesday they had been unable to find sufficient evidence could lead to new prosecutions and therefore suspended the investigation. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), however, stressed that the case would be reopened if new information came to light.
“The investigation has now reached its limit. All leads have been exhausted,” said Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer as the JIT published its latest report on the tragic incident.
According to JIT, the Malaysian Boeing was shot down by a BUK surface-to-air missile. In its report, the team states that there is “strong clues” that the air defense system was supplied to the anti-kyiv rebels of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on the personal order of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
They admit, however, that there is not enough information to answer the “the high bar of complete and conclusive evidence”, this is why the investigation cannot bring any definitive accusation. The team also said it was unable to confirm the identities of the Russian officers believed to have exploited the BUK system allegedly responsible for the tragic incident.
The Malaysian Airlines flight was shot down while flying over eastern Ukraine in July 2014. All 298 people on board were killed. The incident came at a time when Ukrainian government forces were engaged in fierce battles against opposing rebels following an armed coup in Kyiv.
Last November, the JIT investigation, launched in 2019, was used by a Dutch court to give life sentences to two Russian nationals and a Ukrainian who held high-ranking positions in the DPR forces at the time of the attack. incident. The court accused them of being responsible for shooting down the civilian airliner. All three denied the allegations and were tried in absentia. Moscow called the decision a “Politically Motivated Verdict” which was distributed under “unprecedented pressure” and refused to extradite its citizens.
Russia has repeatedly denied responsibility for the downing of MH17 and insisted that Ukraine possessed the same type of weapon system used to shoot down the airliner. Moscow also slammed the JIT investigation for failing to include evidence provided by Russia and failing to take into account that Ukraine has not provided raw radar data since the day of the tragedy. kyiv insists that this information is not available.
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