DISINFO: Information site Bellingcat has been convicted for disinformation
SUMMARY
The authors of the Bellingcat project, which had previously been convicted of producing custom-made anti-Russian information campaigns, did not even bother to take into account the barely matching meaning of the replicas in the audio recordings provided to them. The public was presented with loud but empty accusations that would be forgotten, like the previous ones. At the same time, no real investigation is underway that looks like a vile mockery of the victims of a plane crash.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the downing of the flight MH17, Joint International Investigation and organisations trying to uncover the chain of events that lead to the downing of the passenger plane. The authors of Bellingcat have never been convicted by the courts of any country, the original article in Russian doesn't even mention this sentence. Bellingcat has been the target of a smear campaign by pro-Kremlin media on previous occasions. Bellingcat has been conducting a journalistic investigation of the downing of the MH17 and consistently published about the topic, including an investigation of the chain of command that led to the tragedy. A special team, known as the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), was established to conduct the criminal investigation of the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014. The team comprises officials from the Dutch Public Prosecution Service and the Dutch police, along with police and criminal justice authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine. In order to find out the cause of the crash, the Joint Investigation Team investigated all human remains, personal belongings and wreckage of the aircraft found in the vicinity of the disaster site. The traces were secured and investigated and compared by experts. In addition, the JIT sought and heard witnesses and experts, analysed radar and satellite images, assessed large amounts of telecom data such as intercepted telephone conversations and analysed big data. Read more about the investigation here. On the basis of the JIT investigation, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service is prosecuting three Russians and one Ukrainian for shooting down MH17 and murdering all 298 persons on board: Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, Sergey Nikolayevich Dubinskiy, Oleg Yuldashevich Pulatov, and Leonid Volodymyrovych Kharchenko. The first session of the court proceedings started on the 9th of March in the Hague and have resumed again in June 2020.