The German Prosecutor General's Office and Federal Court have refused comments to Sputnik regarding German detective Joseph Resch's private investigation into the MH17 plane crash, saying that his probe could not be considered as having any interest for the public
BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2019) The German Prosecutor General's Office and Federal Court have refused comments to Sputnik regarding German detective Joseph Resch's private investigation into the MH17 plane crash, saying that his probe could not be considered as having any interest for the public.In 2016, Resch, who has been carrying out his own investigation into the deadly crash in 2014, was brought in for questioning in a case allegedly linked to his work. His house was searched and his safe deposit box in Switzerland opened at the request of the Dutch Prosecutor's Office, while he and his colleagues were interrogated by German prosecution and federal court judges. Resch refused to testify and was fined. According to the detective, he handed a written explanation of his findings to the federal judge on December 7, 2016. Afterward, a representative of the German Prosecutor General's Office called Resch's lawyer and proposed that a conclusion for Dutch investigators stating that the detective "does not know who shot down the plane" be written.
"In this regard, the federal prosecutor's office with the exception of individual cases doesn't indicate whether it conducted an investigation in relation to a specific person, whether it was involved in any particular case or carried out some individual investigative measures," the press service of the Prosecutor General said in response to the request about whether it could provide materials regarding Resch's testimony in 2016.
Sputnik received a similar response from the Federal Court's press service.
In July, Resch told Sputnik that he had tried to provide the Dutch prosecution and Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) with new materials about the crash, but got a refusal because of asking to make the materials public. An open letter to the JIT and the Dutch prosecutor Fred Westerbeke is published on the detective firm Wifka website.
Flight MH17 crashed on July 17, 2014, in eastern Ukraine while en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. All 298 people on board were killed. Kiev and the self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine's easternmost region have exchanged blame for the downing of the plane.
The JIT concluded that the plane was brought down by a missile that came from the 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, based near Russia's Kursk. The Russian Foreign Ministry has refuted the conclusions as groundless and called the investigation biased.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has not been granted access to the investigation, adding that Moscow would be able to recognize its results only if it is a part of the probe.
The Russian Defense Ministry has said that in 2011, the Russian authorities disposed of all missiles from the series that included the projectile whose engine the JIT demonstrated as evidence to prove Russia's involvement in the downing of the plane.
