Dutch Team To Pinpoint Launch Site Of Missile That Downed MH17
The Dutch-led team charged with determining who was responsible for the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine said it will determine soon the exact launch site of the missile that destroyed the plane.
After briefing relatives of the 298 people killed in the July 2014 crash, Fred Westerbeke, the prosecutor leading the international probe, said the investigators had obtained all the information they needed from the United States.
While the exact launch site of the missile should be known by summer, Westerbeke said he did not know when the criminal investigation would be completed.
But he pledged to finish the investigation "as quickly as possible, if only because of the frustration among the families."
A Dutch civil investigation previously concluded that the plane was downed by a Soviet-designed Buk surface-to-air missile.
Last week, the open-research group Bellingcat said it had evidence that Russian soldiers and officers were involved in firing the missile or had knowledge of who did it.
Based on reporting by AP and AFP
An excerpt: Even for Russia, where everyday life can best be described as Kafkaesque, the case of Nadiya Savchenko is outrageous.
In 2014, during the war in Ukraine’s Donbass, Savchenko, a Ukrainian military officer captured by the pro-Russian separatists in combat, was transferred to Russia, where she was accused of involvement in the death of two Russian TV journalists. The journalists were covering the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Has there ever been a more absurd case in history -- a POW being prosecuted on trumped-up criminal charges in the country that is technically not involved in the war?