Rebels destroying evidence, taking away bodies: Ukraine
ACCUSATIONS Kiev raises the stakes by saying it has evidence that a Russian fired the missile; separatist leader calls on Moscow to help in recovering bodies
The Ukrainian government accused Russia and pro-Moscow separatists on Saturday of destroying evidence of “inter national crimes” from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that was, apparently, shot down on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.
“The terrorists have taken 38 corpses to the morgue in Donetsk,” the government said, accusing people with “strong Russian accents” of threatening to conduct autopsies.
As dozens of victims’ bodies lay in bags by the side of the road baking in the summer heat, international monitors at the spot said they were still being hampered by heavily-armed rebels. “Some of the body bags are open and the damage to the corpses is very, very bad,” Michael Bociurkiw, spokesperson, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (an intergovernmental body), told reporters in a phone call from the site.
While Kiev raised the stakes by saying it had evidence that a Russian fired the missile widely assumed to have caused the catastrophe, a separatist leader blamed Ukraine for the delays and called on Moscow to help in recovering the bodies.
Ukraine has accused the rebels of trying to spirit away the black boxes and the missile-launcher across the Russian border.
Moscow, on the other hand, urged both sides to open access to foreign experts.
“It is puzzling that before the trial even started the official representatives of a number of states rushed to unsubstantially put forward their versions of what caused the airplane crash, thus putting pressure on the course of the investigation,” the Russian foreign ministry added.