MH17 probe didn’t look for causes of tragedy, opted to impulsively blame Russia – Malaysian PM
Malaysia can’t accept the conclusions of the Dutch-led probe into the downing of flight MH17, as the probe didn’t seem interested in establishing the truth about the tragedy, the country’s prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has said.
“They aren’t really looking at the causes of the crash and who was responsible, but already they have decided that it must be Russia. We can’t accept that kind of attitude,” Mohamad said in an interview for the “MH17 – Call for Justice” documentary made by Dutch journalist Max van der Werff.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down while flying over the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board. At the time, pro-Kiev government forces were fighting the rebel militias of the breakaway People’s Republic of Donetsk in the area.
Mohamad pointed out that it was “unfair and unusual” that Malaysia had only been included in the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT) six months after the crash.
“The plane is ours and there were Malaysians flying in the plane. They also died. It’s natural that Malaysia should be the first country that should be involved in the investigation, but… they just ignored us, took the black box and carried out the whole investigation,” he said.
Mohamad had said, while still an opposition figure in Malaysian politics, that attempts to pin blame on Russia for the tragedy were politically motivated, and he has maintained his views, even after becoming head of the government in 2018.
Moscow was also notably excluded from the JIT probe, which insists that flight MH17 was downed by a missile fired from a Russian BUK system that crossed into Ukraine and then returned to its base in western Russia.
The investigators have recently announced four names of suspects in the attack. Featuring three Russian nationals and one Ukrainian, they will all soon be put on an international wanted list. The trial in the MH17 case is scheduled to take place in the Netherlands in March 2020.
Russia has maintained that it had nothing to do with the aircraft’s downing. It has said that it couldn’t recognize the findings of an investigation that it wasn’t allowed to participate in, and blamed the JIT of being biased.
Moscow also supplied radar data and evidence from experiments to the Dutch-led experts proving that the missile that destroyed the Malaysian plane belonged to the Ukrainian military, but this data has been brushed aside.
The Russian defense ministry reported that all missiles of the class that the JIT insists was used in the attack were disposed of by Russia in 2011.
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