Investigators of a 2014 crash of a Malaysia Airlines-operated Boeing MH17 will ask Russia and Ukraine to question four suspects named by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), whose conclusions Russia has called baseless in the past, a JIT coordinator said Wednesday
NIEUWEGEIN (The Netherlands) (Pakistan Point news / Sputnik - 19th June, 2019) Investigators of a 2014 crash of a Malaysia Airlines-operated Boeing MH17 will ask Russia and Ukraine to question four suspects named by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), whose conclusions Russia has called baseless in the past, a JIT coordinator said Wednesday."In the short term, we will formally request the Russian Federation to submit summons to the suspects, who are in the Russian Federation. We will also ask Russia to question the suspects about the charges. A similar formal request will be sent to Ukraine," Dutch Chief Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke told a press conference.
"The following suspects are prosecuted for causing the crash of MH17 leading to the death of all the people on board ... and second, murdering 298 passengers of flight MH17 ... The suspects will have the opportunity to explain their side of the story in court," he said.
The Boeing, which was on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed near the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people, mostly from the Netherlands, who were on board the plane were killed. Kiev blamed local militia for the crash, but they said they had no equipment that would allow them to down a plane at that altitude.
The Dutch-led joint investigation team, which does not include Russia, concluded that the plane had been allegedly downed by a Buk missile that belonged to the Russian Armed Forces. Russia has stressed that it gave the Netherlands radar data and documents proving that the missile belonged to Ukraine, but the information was not taken into account.
The Russian Defense Ministry has said that all missiles like the one, whose engine the Dutch-led commission showed, were decommissioned after 2011.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the accusations against Russia were baseless and the investigation was biased and one-sided. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pointed out that Russia was excluded from an investigation of the crash in the east of Ukraine, and Moscow could only recognize the results of the probe if it was a full-fledged participant.
