AIR DISASTER

In an anonymous building in the Netherlands, a team of Australian police officers is at the centre of an international law enforcement team working to bring those responsible for downing MH17 to justice. It has been more than three years since the Malaysia Airlines flight was shot out of the sky above Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, including 38 who were citizens or residents of Australia.

Three long years since the dreadful images were broadcast across the world of a shattered plane, suitcases and plane seats scattered across the fields for 50km, and soldiers callously searching the luggage of dead passengers and waving a toy monkey in the air.

No one has been arrested in that time. No one extradited.

But the senior investigating officer for the Australian Federal Police team which is working full-time in the Netherlands and in Ukraine said justice would be served.

“I’m confident that we will,” Detective-Superintendent David Nelson says when asked if police would bring charges against the perpetrators.

“You’re always confident when you’re undertaking an investigation that you’ll see a positive result at the end of your effort and the end of your investigation, so yes I am.”

The AFP has 10 officers assigned permanently to the MH17 investigation, working hand-in-glove with the four other members of the Joint Investigation Team – the Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia and Belgium.

These countries represent those most affected by the tragedy of July 17, 2014, which saw flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur shot out of the sky as it cruised 10km above the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

Below, a war was being fought between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists. It had been festering since the breakup of the Soviet Union more than 20 years earlier, but exploded in 2014 after the Euromaidan revolution in Kiev led to the ousting of pro-Moscow Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Soon after there was international condemnation when Russia’s military annexed the Crimean peninsula, with President Vladimir Putin saying it was time to bring Crimea back to the Russian fold.

Separatists backed by Russia were locked in conflict in the villages and countryside in the region near Donetsk, the main city in eastern Ukraine. Military aircraft, which were usually flown at lower altitudes, were being shot down.

Some commercial airlines, including Qantas, stopped flying over the war zone, sending their planes around the area on longer, more expensive routes.

But the International Civil Aviation Organisation had deemed it safe for passenger aircraft to continue to fly over the area, provided they were above 32,000ft (9753m), which should have kept them out of harm’s way.

MH17 chose the more direct, cheaper route over Ukraine and was flying at 33,000ft (10,058m) when it was blasted out of the sky.

Since then, the Australian government has been funding an AFP contingent to work alongside the Dutch prosecutors, with the aim of bringing the perpetrators of what was either a criminally negligent accident, or a deliberate act of mass murder, to justice.

With Russia denying responsibility and involvement, the decision was made earlier this year to base any prosecution in the Netherlands, rather than attempt an international war crimes trial.

Nelson says the AFP’s mandate is to support the Dutch prosecutors and police officers who are working on bringing the matter to trial.

“It’s very much about working with the Dutch and our other (investigation) partners … a combined effort in building the brief of evidence and conducting the criminal investigation,” Nelson says. “That hasn’t changed over the last three years but now it’s a bit more focused on where we are going with the prosecution method.”

Investigations from aviation officials revealed the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft broke up midair after it was struck near the cockpit by a Russian-made Buk surface-toair missile. The Dutch safety board determined an 9N314M warhead was fitted onto a 9M83 series missile, which was fired from a launcher brought across the border from Russia on the morning of the strike. The launcher was taken back