‘Strong indications’ Putin had decided on deadly MH17 missile
TWO COUNTY MEN DIED WHEN FLIGHT SHOT FROM SKY IN 2014
AN INTERNATIONAL team says “there are strong indications” Russian President Vladimir Putin “decided on supplying” the Buk missile system used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Former Leicester man Richard Mayne and Loughborough University student Ben Pocock were among 298 people killed when the Boeing 777 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.
Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer said: “The investigation has now reached its limit.
“All leads have been exhausted.” “Although a lot of new information has been discovered about various people involved, the evidence is at the moment not concrete enough to lead to new prosecutions,” investigators said.
Three months ago a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian rebel for their roles in shooting down MH17.
One Russian was acquitted. None of the suspects appeared for the trial and it is doubtful if the three who were found guilty of multiple murders will ever serve their sentences.
The convictions and the court’s finding that the surface-to-air Buk missile which blew the Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight out of the sky came from a Russian military base were seen as a clear indication Moscow had a role.
Russia has always denied involvement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the court in November of bowing to pressure from Dutch politicians, prosecutors and the news media.
But the November convictions held that Moscow was in overall control in 2014 over the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, the separatist area of eastern Ukraine where the missile was launched from. The Buk missile system came from the Russian military’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in the city of Kursk.
“The indications for close ties between the leadership of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Russian government officials raises questions about their involvement in the deployment” of the missile, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service said on its website, citing intercepted phone calls between leaders of the breakaway region and “high-ranking Russian government officials held in the summer of 2014”.
The Dutch and Ukrainian governments are suing Russia at the European Court of Human Rights over its alleged role in the attack.