Five countries call for punishment for perpetrators of MH17 crash
The countries that investigated the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in the Donetsk region confirmed their readiness to bring to justice those responsible for this incident. They released a joint statement to that effect from the permanent representatives of Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Malaysia at the United Nations on the behalf of their governments on the occasion of the second anniversary of the crash.
“These states reaffirmed their commitment to take all effective measures to bring the perpetrators to justice, noting the importance of proving guilt in order to prevent attacks against civil aircraft in the future,” the statement said.
The participants of the investigation also reaffirmed the UN Security Council’s demand to bring to justice those responsible for this incident and reaffirmed their commitment to achieve this goal. They reminded all involved nations of the request for full cooperation.
“In this regard, the states noted the independent technical investigation into causes of the crash, carried out by the transport Security Council of the Netherlands in full compliance with ISAO standards and credited its report, published on the 13th of October 2015. They also noted the criminal investigation, which is being carried out by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT),” the document says.
Earlier, the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, stated that the criminal investigation of this crime under the auspices of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Netherlands is nearing completion and only Russia was hindering the investigation. The crash of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft that was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur took place on the 17th of July 2014 in Donetsk region. All 298 people on board were killed.
The citizens of ten countries were killed in the crash, and the majority of victims (196 people) were citizens of the Netherlands. The West and Ukraine believe that pro-Russian separatists shot down the aircraft. The International Commission on investigation of the crash has found that the aircraft was shot down by a 9H314M warhead that came from a 9M38M1 missile, launched from a Russian-made Buk missile system.