DISINFO: The MH17 trial: not objective; not professional
SUMMARY
The outcome of the criminal MH17 trial, that has just started in the Netherlands, is quite likely predetermined. It is based on the conclusions of the Joint Investigation Team, whose operation has raised a lot of questions through the years. […] Will this trial be just? According to the experts, one can not consider the investigation objective or professional, based on the methods and quality of work done by the JIT. For example, Russia was not allowed to be a part of the investigation group. Ukraine was included and had all opportunities to influence the course of the investigation. […] The JIT has built all of its conclusions by ineptly combining dubious data from the social networks
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the MH17, an attempt to discredit the Joint International Investigation and a criminal trial that has started in the Hague. A special team, known as the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), was established to conduct the criminal investigation into the downing of the flight MH17. The JIT 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. After years of painstaking investigation, the 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 (or: Pervomaiskyi). 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 Persecution service is persecuting Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, Sergey Nikolayevich Dubinskiy, Oleg Yuldashevich Pulatov, and Leonid Volodymyrovych Kharchenko for causing the crash of the MH17 and murdering the 298 persons on board. The first session of the court proceedings has started on the 9th of March in the Hague. The European Union and NATO have called on the Russian Federation to accept its responsibility and to fully cooperate with all efforts to establish accountability. On the basis of the JIT’s conclusions, the Netherlands and Australia are convinced that Russia is responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation that was used to down MH17. The two governments are formally holding Russia accountable.