Investigators to name suspects, announce criminal proceedings over flight MH17 crash: reports
After five years of waiting for justice, investigators are set to announce criminal proceedings against suspects involved in the the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. WARNING: GRAPHIC
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After five years of waiting for justice, investigators are set to announce criminal proceedings against suspects in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, two leading Dutch broadcasters report.
MH17 was shot out of the sky over territory held by separatists in eastern Ukraine as it flew from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board.
There were 38 Australians, one New Zealander, 193 Dutch, 43 Malaysians and 12 Indonesians were aboard, as well as 10 British passengers.
The other passengers were from Germany, Belgium, the Philippines and Canada.
Dutch prosecutors said a multinational investigation team would present its latest findings to media and families on June 19. A spokesman for the national Dutch prosecution service declined to specify what would be announced.
Citing anonymous sources, broadcaster RTL reported that the public prosecution service had decided to launch a case against several MH17 suspects. National public broadcaster NOS also reported that criminal proceedings will be announced against individual suspects.
No suspects were named in the reports.
The Joint Investigation Team, which seeks to try the suspects under Dutch law, has said the missile system came from the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, based in the western Russian city of Kursk.
Investigators had said their next step would be to identify individual culprits and to attempt to put them on trial.
Dutch officials have said Russia has refused to co-operate.
Russia is not expected to surrender any potential suspects who may be on its territory and authorities have said individuals could be tried in absentia. The Joint Investigation Team was formed in 2014 by Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine to investigate collaboratively.
The Netherlands and Australia hold Russia legally responsible. Moscow denies all involvement and maintains that it does not support, financially or with equipment, pro-Russian rebels fighting Ukrainian government troops.
JUSTICE FOR FAMILIES
The world of the Maslin family was turned upside down when the parents of three innocent children faced an unimaginable loss.
Mo, Evie and Otis lost their lives when MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, killing all on board.
The children — aged 12, 10 and eight — died alongside their grandfather, Nick Norris.
Thirty four other Australians on board also perished.
New grim discovery at MH17 crash site
MH17 video ‘critical’ to probe
The children’s parents shared their story earlier this month.
Speaking with ABC’s Australian Story, Anthony ‘Maz’ Maslin and his wife Marite ‘Rin’ Norris, who welcomed their daughter Violet two years after the tragedy, revealed how they coped with their immeasurable grief.
The ABC reveals the couple contemplated taking their own lives in the hours after the plane was shot down.
But they decided not to inflict the pain they were feeling on anybody else.
“Our world as we knew it was absolutely over in that moment and we just started to say, ‘when the world ended’ and that’s how we refer to it now,” Rin Norris told the ABC.
“Where we were was hell,” Ms Norris said.
“Where we are now is a different place, and what we feel we owe to the Australian public is to let you know how we got to where we are now.”
The couple were part of a strong and supportive community in Perth’s Scarborough district and a group of friends surrounded them, bringing in meals and making sure that they weren’t left alone.
“Friends came up with this idea of the web of love,” friend Mia Martin told the program.
“Emails went out and right from the first few days it was around the clock monitoring.”
The Maslins shared their story in the hope that they can help others overcoming intense grief.
“It’s about being proud of who we are and how we’ve handled things,” Ms Norris said.
“Tragedy can be a source of strength. Tragedy can teach you things that you never wanted to learn.”
“I don’t feel anger towards the people who fired the rocket,” Mr Maslin said.
“I feel something much worse, I feel pity towards them.”
Ms Norris said the couple started to think about having another child “soon after the world ended because it was a tiny glimmer of hope that our life might not be continuously and forever just lost”.
Two years after the crash, they welcomed daughter Violet May.
“I’ll never forget holding her in my arms and feeling just a tiny little moment of peace that I hadn’t felt for so long,” Ms Norris told Australian Story.
Former foreign minister Julie Bishop reveals what went on behind the scenes to bring Russia to account at the UN.
The episode comes as the fifth anniversary of the crash approaches.
One key piece of evidence changed everything when it was uncovered by News Corp Australia’s Charles Miranda in a world exclusive.
Readers can see the video he found above and read the transcript below.
The Dutch-led JIT — comprising investigators from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine — released a report in May 2018 stating that the missile system used to bring down the plane was owned by the Russian army.
News Corp Australia’s team, one of the first Western media to come across the cockpit section of the doomed plane in the immediate aftermath, assisted in the probe not only through the photographic and reporting of the crash site — including flight charts and log books — but later securing video footage shot by the rebels themselves in the crucial minutes after the aircraft was brought down.
Staff were requested to provide more than 10 hours of evidence over two days.
The videotape, handed over to authorities a year after the tragedy and days after it was secured in July 2015, showed the moment rebels came across the still burning aircraft with commanders being seen and heard to order their men to hunt for the five pilots whom they believed had parachuted out of the aircraft.
The 17-minute tape in fact records the moment they realise it was not a military aircraft but a commercial passenger plane as they come across “Chinese” civilians, believed to have been Malaysian flight crew and bags including one where they wonder aloud why the bag tag was marked as belonging to a passenger from “Australia”.
Here is the full transcript of the distressing footage, which showed rebels ransacking the luggage of innocent people who had just been shot out of the sky.
(Video Starts)
This is another plane, I think.
It’s the fighter.
Commander: There, part of engine.
Other: Yes, I think.
Cmdr: Yes, it’s the Sukhoi.
(Phone): Call the headquarters, the town, he will take you there.
Background: There’s coins here.
Cmdr: There’s five people who jumped.
Background: This is the Sukhoi lying around.
Background: You know how many bodies out there?
Cmdr: They say the Sukhoi (Fighter) brought down the civilian plane and ours brought down the fighter.
Background: But where is the Sukhoi?
There it is … it’s the passenger plane.
Background: It’s just fragments.
(Phone ringing)
Cmdr: Hello, yes, we’re at the crash site. What, is there’s another plane taken down there?
Understood, keep the perimeter, don’t let the civilians in. OK then, we’ll be there soon.
It’s a civilian, it’s some civilian.
Background: But what direction did it come from … and fall?
Background: Look, aluminium.
Background: [Undistinguished]. Where is the Sukhoi then?
Background: It’s confusing. No idea where the Sukhoi is, it’s burning here and there and debris everywhere.
(Phone ringing)
Cmdr: Yes (KOT). Speak. What? No, don’t fly in anywhere yet, wait for the orders. Remain at the headquarters.
Background: Civilians, move away, spread out! Let’s go! … Move …
Cmdr: The civilian plane. Malaysian.
Cmdr: Yes, there are a lot of bodies, women … Anyway, have to go with Vinograbov. Here … you’ll see here.
Background: Orange in colour, the black box.
Cmdr: (Still on the phone) OK, OK.
Background: Look for the black box everywhere.
Background: Don’t film here.
Cmdr: I’m not filming faces, I never film faces.
Cmdr: Guys, I don’t like it either if it’s leaked on the internet.
Cmdr: Are you filming here guys?
Cmdr: This is some military (expletive)
Cmdr: Don’t film here guys.
Background: No, it’s some sort of bag.
Cmdr: Got a knife?
Background: Military something ….
Cmdr: Commander, can someone come here? Open it, I will stand and watch or hold the camera and I will open it. Open it.
Background: There are documents; it will tell whose plane it is right away.
Cmdr: Disperse the civilians!
Cmdr: These are clothes.
Cmdr: Get rid of the civilians!
Background: Documents …
Background: Some stewardess, not Russian.
Cmdr: Get rid of all the civilians!
Cmdr: It’s a Malaysian Airport [ID], Malaysian airlines. It expires on the 26th of July 2018.
(Phone Ringing)
Yes. Hello.
Background: “Chink” looking laying around there. Civilians … spread out!
Cmdr: Get rid of the civilians. Place the cars.
Cmdr: You see, they are foreigners, Malaysians.
Background: Who’s opened a corridor for them to fly over here?
Cmdr: Even a **** parrot flew.
Cmdr: There are birds everywhere, here’s one, here’s another. Where from? There’s another bird there!
(Phone ringing)
Cmdr: Hello, yes. They saw a pilot crawling at Rassipnaya. A pilot was seen crawling.
Cmdr: Get out there with your men …. Right now. And where’s the parachute jumper?
Cmdr: The plane fell at Lesnaya Skazka [village name]. Understood. OK. The car has left to there. Let’s go already. Understood.
Cmdr: Thank you girl. After the war we’ll give you a medal.
Cmdr: It’s a civilian.
Cmdr: … F***. Passenger plane was f*****.
Background: Black box …
Cmdr: There’s the black box, Look! Take it to our car. Look for the other one, there should be two.
Background: They are not Russian.
Cmdr: Show me the photo.
Cmdr: Yes.
Background: …. Muhamed Jatri …
Background: Take this.
Background: What is this?
Cmdr: Check it out.
Cmdr: There’s a plastic bag, put it in there.
Background: Some sort of equipment, there’s a charger for it.
Cmdr: We apparently found one black box. We need the second black box.
Cmdr: Show me. Just careful there. I’m filming here.
Cmdr: Just break the package, why go through the pain?
Cmdr: Put it somewhere there:
Cmdr: It’s Malaysian, here’s the stewardess’ Identification Card
Cmdr: And what is this jacket? Some wind jacket?
Background: Look for more information out there.
Cmdr: Put it all there, the investigation is going deal with it.
Cmdr: (name suppressed), Australia Australia …
Cmdr: (to someone in the distance) Get rid of the Skoda. There’s a Skoda sitting there.
Background: Open the bag. Some …. Some sort of equipment.
Cmdr: Binoculars, they are broken … useless. Documents …
Look in the bag … Documents …
Background: From the documents, what flight was it?
Cmdr: There, I have the ID.
(Phone ringing)
Yes (Ruslan?). I’m filming, taking pictures. I’ll check, I see it. There’s some birds here, parrots too, I’ll take you to see the parrot.
Background: There’s some journalists here, well, almost journalists.
Background: I can see.
Why is there a case full of birds?
Come here Oleg.
(Phone ringing)
Yes Ruslan, hi. I’m here, a plane was brought down. I’m at the crash site. I will be there. I will be there for sure.
Same time: (Another Phone) Yes Roman,
Come over here, our people are here too. OK (Roman), I’ll call you later.
Background: There’s an USB here, I want to see what’s on it … Battery …
Cmdr: The other plane that fell down, they are after them, the pilots.
Background: The second one?
Cmdr: Yes, there’s 2 planes taken down. We need the second.
Background: The second one is a civilian too?
Background: The fighter jet brought down this one, and our people brought down the fighter.
Background: They decided to do it this way, to look like we have brought down the plane.
Cmdr: I have the power. Oleg, I have the power if anything, take that into consideration.
Cmdr: Collect the USBs. The information is the most important.
Cmdr: Let the firefighters extinguish the flames.
(Phone ringing)
Yes Kalyian. I understood you, but we’re already at the crash site. A passenger plane was brought down. They brought down the passenger plane and we brought down the fighter.
We’re at the crash site.
Cmdr: The other team is working there, they are already taking over.
Guys, where’s the village 49 (Grabovo)?
Background: We’re not from around here, we don’t know. There, ask them.
Who’s local here?
Forty-nine? On the other side of the field.
Cmdr: The parachute jumpers are there.
Background: But there are two planes, from my understanding.
Background: And what’s the other one? A Sukoi?
Cmdr: A Sukhoi.
The Sukhoi brought down the plane and we brought down the Sukhoi.
Is it far from here? Where did it fall?
Looks like … Where’s the smoke coming from?
Somewhere else is burning, the 49 village.
I mean … the two pilots landed on parachutes.
(Phone ringing)
Cmdr: Yes, speak. I’m here, I’m in Grabovo. Right at the place. I’m not at the bird site, I’m in the field. I didn’t get there yet.
Cmdr: Five parachutes jumped off this plane. Five people jumped off this plane on the bird site. How to get there?
OK we’ll go there soon. We’ll see. OK then.
Cmdr: Yes, I see them, Chinese … (video ends)
If this story has raised concerns for you or someone you know, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36
Originally published as Investigators to name suspects, announce criminal proceedings over flight MH17 crash: reports
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