MH17 trial resumes: the US may have crucial satellite photos
Flight MH17 was intentionally struck by a surface-to-air missile, it has been suggested after US intelligence released a statement to Dutch prosecutors.
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The United States may have crucial satellite photos of the missile used to bring down MH17 six years ago but the images are classified, a court has heard. In the District Court of The Hague on Tuesday, prosecutor Thijs Berger discussed radar and satellite analysis of the July 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
All 298 on board the plane were killed, including 38 people who called Australia home, when it was shot down in Ukraine over an area where government forces were fighting Russian-backed rebels.
Russians Oleg Pulatov, Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko are being tried in absentia in the Netherlands for murder and the destruction of a civilian airliner.
Mr Berger says the US director of national intelligence issued a statement three days after the crash saying a surface-to-air missile had been launched 6km south of Snizhne that “went into the aircraft”.
He says the Dutch national prosecutor was briefed by US officials on several classified and unclassified documents.
“Part of the underlying metadata and research data has not been made available for inspection,” Berger told the court.
“The US authorities have indicated that they cannot provide more information about the detection of the missile than stated in the written statement and that the Dutch national prosecutor has given it confidential.”
The prosecutor said Russia only provided low-resolution satellite photos and China said its satellite flying over the region at the time of the crash was not working.
The joint investigation team also analysed all available radar data from Ukraine and Russia, none of which detected a fighter plane in the area or a missile. Two court-appointed radar experts, the Dutch Safety Board, Russian arms maker Almaz Antey and the Russian defence ministry agreed Russian civilian radar data did not show a missile either. Russia did not provide its military radar to the probe.
However, the experts concluded a small and fast-flying Buk missile, which is smaller than a drone, is easy to miss on radar.
Berger said other possibilities were the missile was detected but the Russian civilian system may not have stored the data, or the missile was not initially detected because it flew below the 800m radar horizon.
One of the experts also suggested that imagery showing the missile could have later been deleted.
“According to him, this is a very simple operation and that removal cannot be determined afterwards,” Berger said.
The trial continues.
SUSPECT TRIES TO BLAME VIRUS ON COURT DELAY
MH17 suspect Oleg Pulatov has tried to blame coronavirus travel restrictions and translation problems as excuses to delay a Dutch court case into the downing of the Boeing jet.
Pulatov is one of four people on trial in the Netherlands for the murder of 298 people, including 38 Australians, who were on board the doomed flight that was shot down in Ukraine in 2014.
His defence team had demanded more time to read 40,000 pages of documents in the case, most of which was not in Russian, and argued that they had not been able to speak with him in person because of coronavirus travel restrictions.
Sabine ten Doesschate, acting for Pulatov, had also complained that they did not want to speak with him over the phone in case his conversations were being listened to.
Public prosecutor Thijs Berger, in response to the request for the delay, said that all communication between a lawyer and a client was protected in the Netherlands.
He said that witnesses in the case had already been given protection.
“We have no reason to believe that he is facing any dangers at present,” he said.
“As far as we know we can ascertain his interests are aligned with the Russian Federation.”
He said that a witness who was living in Russia that blamed Ukraine for the bombing would be safe, but offered to speak in a private hearing if there were more specific details.
Hearings resumed at the Schiphol Justice Complex in Amsterdam on Monday night Australian time, with judges separated by protective barriers amid the ongoing threat of coronavirus.
The court heard that there were more than 600 pages of case file already translated into Russian but the defence was unable to say whether Pulatov had read those documents.
Ms Doesschate said that travel restrictions put in place just days after the hearings started in March had made it difficult for her client to make his case.
Pulatov was a former Russian soldier who was in charge of intelligence in Donetsk, a rebel held area in eastern Ukraine where the plane was shot down with a Russian missile.
Russia was accused of backing the rebels.
Former Colonel Igor Girkin, who was in Russia’s FSB Intelligence group, was also charged with the downing of MH17, along with Russian Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.
The case has centred on social media posts and recordings of conversations between some of the accused, including Pulatov, who was the only suspect who provided a lawyer to the court.
Ms Doesschate said that she had been unable to meet with her client in person, adding that there were language barriers.
“Oleg Pulatov speaks Russian, we do not,” she said.
She added that all of the taped conversations may need to be provided to the defence so that Pulatov could listen to them.
There are translations but most of them are in Russians,
“If it’s not his voice, if he knows whose voice it is in what context that conversation had taken place,” she said.
“The answers that we do not yet know may lead to other questions.”
The case continues.
stephen.drill@news.co.uk