International Criminal Probe Blames Missile From Russia For MH17 Tragedy
By RFE/RL
NIEUWEGEIN, The Netherlands -- Relatives of victims of the MH17 tragedy say the international criminal investigation into the incident has determined the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet was shot down by a Buk antiaircraft missile fired from separatist controlled territory in Ukraine.
Speaking in the Dutch town of Nieuwegein on September 28, Fred Westerbeke, the Netherlands chief prosecutor and head of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), said the probe had eliminated all other possible explanations for the destruction of MH17.
Westerbeke added that the JIT could not currently reveal all of its findings for fear of hampering its criminal investigations.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 passengers and crew on board perished.
The JIT further determined that the Buk missile system was brought into Ukraine from Russia shortly before the tragedy and then smuggled back to Russia shortly afterward.
At the press conference, the JIT showed an elaborate 10-minute animation interlaced with photographs and videos taken in July 2014 that showed the Buk system being brought into Ukraine and arriving near the town of Snizhne. It further presented audio and photographic evidence that a missile was launched. Then the same Buk unit, with only three missiles, was traced moving by night back through Luhansk and into Russia.
An earlier report by the Dutch Safety Board also concluded that MH17 was downed by a Buk fired from separatist-controlled territory.
Hans de Borst, who lost his 17-year-old daughter Elsemiek in the MH17 tragedy, told journalists in Nieuwegein ahead of the JIT presentation on September 28 that he was confident in the team's findings.
"All kinds of proof. Telephone taps, even new raw material, radars. American information, classified information which they're not allowed to bring in the open here. Witnesses... all kinds," he said. "So I have a lot of faith in this."
In the days before the JIT report, Russia has stepped up efforts to assert other explanations for the MH17 disaster. At a Moscow press conference on September 26, the Russian Defense Ministry said the JIT probe was going “in the wrong direction.”
Moscow released what it claimed as “new” radar evidence showing MH17 was downed by a missile shot from territory held by Ukrainian troops. This claim contradicted Moscow’s previous assertion that it had radar evidence showing MH17 had been shot down by a Ukrainian Air Force fighter jet.
In July 2015, Russia used its UN Security Council veto to block a resolution aimed at creating an international MH17 tribunal, saying that doing so would be “counterproductive.”
Shortly before the JIT press conference, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists in Moscow that the international investigation must take the “latest information” into account.
“The data are unambiguous,” Peskov said. “If there had been a missile, then it could have been launched from other territory.”
A JIT official said Russia had not provided this information to its investigators and it had not been evaluated.
The JIT includes representatives of the countries most affected by the tragedy -- the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, and Belgium working in cooperation with Ukraine. Its purpose is to develop evidence that could be used in criminal prosecutions in any of those countries.
The JIT has been working with the British-based nongovernmental organization Bellingcat, which has used open-source online information such as social media posts to track the movement of a Buk missile unit from near the Russian city of Kursk to the Ukrainian village of Snizhne in the days before the MH17 downing and to track the same units return to Russia immediately afterward.
"Obviously, the Russians are doing everything they can to undermine this press conference," Bellingcat founder and director Eliot Higgins told RFE/RL's Rikard Jozwiak in Nieuwegein on September 28. "They released this radar data. You know, it was ridiculous really because they managed to prove that their previous press conference was a lie. In the first press conference, [the Russians] said there was a jet three to five kilometers away, and in the recent one they said there was nothing anyway near it. So, you know, the Russians are going to try very hard to not to admit responsibility for this."
Bellingcat has given the JIT a dossier identifying around 100 Russia military personnel who may have been involved in the incident. Experts in the Netherlands say it is unlikely that the JIT interim report will name any specific suspects.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Rikard Jozwiak, The Guardian, Interfax, TASS, and the BBC
Just in from RFE/RL's Rikard Jozwiak in Nieuwegein, a small town outside Utrecht, where the JIT press conference is under way:
Relatives of victims of the MH17 tragedy say the international criminal investigation into the incident has determined the passenger jet was shot down by a Buk antiaircraft missile fired from separatist controlled territory in Ukraine.
Speaking to RFE/RL after meeting privately with officials from the Joint Investigative Team (JIT) on September 28, Robbie Oehlers, who lost a cousin in the tragedy, and Piet Ploeg, who lost a brother, said the JIT has also determined that the Buk missile system was smuggled into Ukraine from Russian territory and then removed from Ukraine back to Russia shortly after MH17 was shot down.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 passengers and crew on board perished.
Russia has denied supplying the separatists that it supports with such weapons and has asserted MH17 was shot down by Ukrainian forces.