Although the presence of a missile or fighter jet at the moment in 2014 that flight MH17 was downed in eastern Ukraine cannot be ascertained by radar data, it does not prove they were not there, Dutch prosecutor Thijs Berger said on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th June, 2020) Although the presence of a missile or fighter jet at the moment in 2014 that flight MH17 was downed in eastern Ukraine cannot be ascertained by radar data, it does not prove they were not there, Dutch prosecutor Thijs Berger said on Tuesday.
The hearings into the MH17 crash were renewed on June 8 in the Netherlands.
"The fact that radars failed to register [it], does not mean that a missile was not there. [Russian arms manufacturer] Almaz - Antey and the Russian Defense Ministry, on the other hand, consider the lack of detection to serve as true evidence of the absence of a Buk missile [launched] from [the Donbas city of ] Snizhne," Berger said, citing an expert consensus that the available radar data does not include missile of fighter jet detection.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, in eastern Ukraine on its way to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. All 298 people aboard died. The accident was investigated by Dutch prosecutors and the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT). The four suspects in the case are Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko. Russia, which conducted its own investigation after being denied access to the JIT's probe, said it had given the Dutch team evidence, such as radar data, proving the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian Buk missile. Dutch prosecutor Ward Ferdinandusse said the Russian evidence had been taken into account during the investigation.
