US will continue to work with JIT in probe
KUALA LUMPUR: The United States yesterday reaffirmed its commitment that it will continue to work with the Joint Investigation Team investigating the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
The US Department of State spokesperson John Kirby also called on other states that are in a position to assist, to cooperate fully so that those responsible are held accountable.
Yesterday, the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) concluded in the interim report that MH17 was shot down by a Buk missile which was brought from Russia to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, according to a statement from the team on the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service website, the Buk missile was fired from a farmland near the city of Pervomaiskyi, “which, at the time, was controlled by proRussian fighters”.
“While nothing can take away the grief of those who lost loved ones on that tragic day, this announcement is another step towards bringing to justice those responsible for this outrageous attack,” Kirby said in a statement released by US Embassy in Malaysia, here.
Kirby said the findings corroborated US Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement in the days following the tragedy that MH17 was shot down by a Buk surface-to- air missile fired from Russian-backed, separatistcontrolled territory in eastern Ukraine.
Earlier, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said Malaysia was committed to bringing those responsible for downing MH17 to be brought to justice and there was no two ways about it.
Last year, Dutch Safety Board chairman Tjibbe Joustra confirmed that MH17 was shot down by a Buk surface-to- air missile over eastern Ukraine.
The report came out after 15 months of investigation undertaken by a joint investigation team from the Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia, the United Kingdom, US and Russia.
However, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Malaysia yesterday expressed disappointment over the findings and claimed that the investigation was biased and politically motivated.
In a statement, it said “nothing has changed in the investigation into the Boeing crash” despite the conclusions reached by the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The statement said Russia had from the very beginning suggested working together and relying on facts alone, but the international investigators excluded Russia from fully participating in the investigation and assigned a secondary role to its efforts.
“It sounds like a bad joke but instead they made Ukraine a full member of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), allowing it to forge evidence and steer the matter in its favour,” it said.
Russia has also claimed that the investigators continue to ignore its irrefutable evidence, even though it is essentially the only country that has provided credible information and continues to uncover new information.
“We hope now that Russia has transferred to the JIT such indisputable evidence as initial radar images – and any expert will understand why it is indisputable – the situation will change and the JIT’s final conclusions, unlike its preliminary conclusions, will reflect the objective truth and point to the real perpetrators of this tragedy,” it said. — Bernama