DISINFO: JIT's goal was not to establish facts but to substantiate accusations against Russia
SUMMARY
The goal of the JIT was not to establish the truth in the MH17 case, but only to substantiate “that very first“ only correct ”version” about the direct involvement of the Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics and Russia in the crash.
RESPONSE
One of the numerous unfounded conspiracy theories attempting to discredit the Joint International Investigation of the downing of the flight MH17. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which is comprised of Dutch Public Prosecution Service officials and the Dutch police, along with police and criminal justice authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine, was established in 2014 to conduct a criminal investigation of MH17 crash. The purpose of the criminal investigation is to establish the facts of the case, to determine the truth of what happened, to identify those responsible for downing flight MH17, and to gather criminal evidence for prosecution. After careful investigation and on the basis of all availablke data, JIT has concluded that flight MH17 was shot down on 17 July 2014 by a missile of the 9M38 series, launched by a BUK-TELAR, from farmland in the vicinity of Pervomaiskiy. At that time, the area was controlled by pro-Russian fighters. The BUK-TELAR was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and subsequently, after having shot down flight MH17, was taken back to the Russian Federation. The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has concluded that the BUK-TELAR used to down MH17 originates from the 53rd Anti Aircraft Missile brigade, a unit of the Russian army from Kursk in the Russian Federation. On the basis of the investigation conducted by the JIT, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service is prosecuting Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, Sergey Nikolayevich Dubinskiy, Oleg Yuldashevich Pulatov, and Leonid Volodymyrovych Kharchenko for causing the crash of MH17 and murdering the 298 persons on board. The trial began on 9 March 2020 in the Netherlands. You can see other examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation on the MH17 case in our database, such as claims that hiding the truth about MH17 crash is beneficial to the Netherlands, that JIT ignores Russia-supplied radar data proving MH17 was shot down by Ukraine, or that the MH17 case is being dragged out due to new facts proving Moscow's innocence.