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The MH17 Show Trial Isn’t About Justice Or Closure, But Information Warfare

By Andrew Korybko | One World | March 11, 2020

The MH17 tragedy is back in the news after the start of this case’s show trial in the Netherlands, which isn’t about bringing the alleged perpetrators to justice or helping the victims’ families find closure, but waging information warfare against Russia in an attempt to “conclusively” pin the blame for this crime on its supposed proxies in Eastern Ukraine so as to ruin President Putin’s international reputation once and for all.

The world is once again talking about the MH17 tragedy after the start of this case’s show trial in the Netherlands, where four of the alleged perpetrators are being accused of murder. It’s unlikely that they’ll appear before the court, so the entire process is more about show than substance. In case the reader doesn’t remember exactly what happened on that fateful summer day on 17 July, 2014, the author recommends that they review his most recent analysis on the issue from earlier this year titled “Latest MH17 Documentary By SBU Whistleblower Shares Some Shocking Truths“, which covers what he believes to be the most convincing version of events that transpired immediately before, during, and after the passenger jet was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. In short, the conventional narrative that the Russian-aligned rebels there were responsible is debunked as a convenient cover-up for masking Kiev’s culpability, which in turn also makes that government’s Western backers — and not Russia — indirectly responsible. It’s therefore understandable that a lot of powerful forces are invested in making their manufactured version of the “truth” the “official” one, hence the show trial, which is nothing more than an attempt to “conclusively” pin the blame for this crime on Russia and its supposed proxies in Eastern Ukraine.

Before going any further, it needs to be said that victims’ families have every right to be upset about what happened, and that everyone should respect their right to draw their own conclusions about what took place even if one doesn’t ultimately agree with them. The author doesn’t believe that Russia or the Eastern Ukrainian rebels were responsible, but acknowledges that some of the victims’ families think differently, especially after some of them staged a silent protest outside of the Russian Embassy in The Hague over the weekend. Nobody should criticize the victims’ families and thus make this all the harder for them to deal with, but there’s also nothing wrong with talking about how their reaction to this tragedy is being exploited by those who are relying upon it to convince others that their interpretation of events is the only correct one. Politicizing the suffering of innocent people is wrong no matter who does it or why, which is why it’s morally reprehensible that others are taking advantage of them under the guise of “giving them a voice” in order to push their narrative onto the broader public. The ongoing trial isn’t about bringing the alleged perpetrators to justice or helping the victim’s families find closure, but waging information warfare against Russia, the purpose of which is to ruin its international reputation and that of its leader.

President Putin is generally despised by the West but loved by the non-West because of his domestic and foreign policy successes over the past 20 years, which greatly contributed to bringing the emerging Multipolar World Order about. Even his detractors recognize that he’s an epochal figure whose legacy will certainly be studied for generations to come by people all across the world, they just regard Russia’s return to international prominence as being detrimental to their countries’ zero-sum interests. Nevertheless, they also wisely understand that soft power is more important than ever before in today’s interconnected, globalized world, especially after the information-communication technology revolution of the early 2000s, so they have a driving motivation to defame the Russian leader any chance they get. Regrettably, the MH17 tragedy is cynically seen as the “perfect opportunity” to ruin his legacy by forever associating him with what happened even though he played no role in those events whatsoever, nor did his countrymen. All that’s important to the “perception managers” who manufactured this weaponized narrative is that the lingering suspicion of President Putin’s possible involvement “credibly” exists, which explains the infowar importance of the ongoing show trial for supposedly “confirming” that.

Back to the show trial itself, it’s predictable that the accused will probably be found “guilty” for the aforementioned political reasons of pinning the blame for that tragedy entirely on Russia and the Eastern Ukrainian rebels so as to deflect from the “inconvenient” facts that have since come to light implicating Kiev and its Western backers, which was explained in the author’s analysis that he cited in the opening paragraph of this article. The overall soft power impact of this seemingly inevitable conclusion will likely be minimal, however, seeing as how most people have already made up their minds about who was really responsible. Those who are convinced that Russia played a role will feel “vindicated” by the anticipated verdict, while those who have remained skeptical this entire time could use the newfound attention to this case to share the “inconvenient” evidence that was just touched upon with others. The takeaway from all this “legal” drama is that tragedies will almost always be politicized for information warfare purposes, especially if the case can remotely be made that Russia or any of the West’s other geopolitical rivals might have had even an indirect role in whatever it is that transpired, so these countries should brace themselves to expect more such show trials in the future and take steps to ensure that their side of the story is heard by as many people as possible.

Andrew Korybko is an American political analyst.

March 12, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

Netherlands-Led JIT Biased Towards Russia, Ignored Massive Data on MH17 Crash Handed Over by Moscow

Sputnik – March 6, 2020

Moscow has expressed readiness to provide all the relevant data on the MH17 crash since the day of the catastrophe, including radar data and information about weapons allegedly used to down the plane, but the investigative team repeatedly ignored these offers or disregarded the data obtained in its conclusions.

The Russian Public Prosecutor’s Office has slammed the Joint Investigative Team (JIT) led by the Netherlands for ignoring huge amounts of data transferred by Moscow to Amsterdam prosecutors about the MH17 crash in Ukraine in 2014. According to them, this situation clearly demonstrates the JITs attitude towards Russia.

“Most of the data was ignored by the JIT, whose members demonstrated their selective approach towards evidence in the case from the very beginning, as well as clearly biased attitude towards Russia and its attempts to uncover the true cause of the aviation tragedy”, a statement by the Public Prosecutor’s Office reads.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office also noted that JIT refused to pass along case materials on three Russian citizens, accused by the team of being responsible for the jet’s crash, and added that this decision can’t be appealed in a national court. The first hearing against the three Russians and one Ukrainian citizen in the case will take place in The Hague on 9 March despite concerns about the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Officials from the Prosecutor Office’s clarified that Russia is not taking part in this trial and its decisions have no legal power in the country.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the Netherlands of trying to pressure the court in The Hague ahead of the MH17 hearing.

“I’d like to comment on the actions by Netherlands’ authorities, which clearly indicate of their attempts to pressure the court in The Hague. We see how an information campaign in the Netherlands is gaining pace ahead of the court hearing on 9 March regarding the MH17 crash”, she stated.

Zakharova further clarified that the pressure campaign was initiated by the Dutch Prosecution Service, which is leading the JIT. According to her, the campaign aims to form a specific public opinion on the subject and to possibly secure the “so-called success” of the six-year-long investigation.

MH17 Tragedy

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, carrying 298 people on board, was shot down on 17 July 2014 as it was flying over eastern Ukraine, which was engulfed in a military conflict between the Ukrainian Army and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Following the crash, Ukraine delegated the investigation into the incident to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) in the Netherlands, which lost 193 citizens in the incident.

The DSB concluded that the plane was downed by a 9N314M missile fired by a Soviet-made Buk 9M38-series air defence system, but failed to specify the launch site. Later, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) made up of the Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine, Australia, and Malaysia was formed to conduct a criminal investigation into the case and to determine who was responsible for the tragedy. However, Russia, which assisted the DSB investigation, was left out of the group, despite the fact that it was ready to provide useful data on the incident.

Western governments were quick to accuse the Donetsk People’s Republic of shooting down the plane even before the investigators drafted preliminary reports on the cause of the crash, claiming that Russia had fostered the tragedy by allegedly providing weaponry to DPR forces.

Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in the incident and called for an unbiased investigation to be conducted. In addition, Russia provided vast amounts of data such as radar feeds from the area of the crash and info on the Buk 9M38-series air defence system showing that it couldn’t have been used to down the MH17 Boeing 777. However, the JIT ignored most of the information.

In 2018, the JIT released a report claiming that the missile that shot down MH17 was launched by DPR forces and that the Buk launcher had been delivered from Russia. Moscow stated that it couldn’t accept the results of the investigation, slamming it as politically motivated and biased, pointing out that the investigative team had based its accusations on unverified social media photos and videos, as well as assertions by the Ukrainian government. The prime minister of Malaysia, which lost 43 people in the tragedy, was also disappointed by the results of the investigation, which he called “politicised”.

In the final report, published on 18 June 2019, the JIT accused three Russians and one Ukrainian of being responsible for the jet’s crash, issuing international arrest warrants for them. Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the report for failing to address “a lot of questions” that were left unanswered, such as why Ukraine had allowed the plane to fly over an active war zone in the first place. The president also slammed the JIT for failing to consider Russia’s account of events, arguing that they were simply “appointing perpetrators” instead of trying to establish what actually happened on the day of the crash.

March 6, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , , | 1 Comment

Leaked Docs Point to No Buk Missile Systems Around MH17 Crash Area, Dutch Journo Reveals

Sputnik – February 18, 2020

Leaked papers pertaining to the finalised JIT investigation that the source has bona fide reason to believe are authentic do not corroborate the study’s findings. They cite witness testimonies as well as a number of discrepancies in the probe that suggest the Boeing was downed by an air-to-air missile, rather than a surface-to-air rocket.

According to new data from unpublished MH17 Joint Investigation Team documents obtained and analysed by Bonanza Media investigative journalist Max van der Werff, there were no Buk missile systems in the vicinity of where the Malaysian Airlines Boeing crashed in eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014.

The journalist concludes, citing a letter from Dutch Military Intelligence, that it “becomes apparent that flight MH17 was flying beyond the range of all identified and operational Ukrainian and Russian locations where 9K37M1 Buk M1 systems were deployed.”

The letter, dated 21 September 2016, which is exactly one week before JIT held a press-conference on 28 September, proves the Dutch team obtained evidence that no Russian Buk system had crossed into Ukraine from Russia only days before the presser, der Werff wrote.

Fighter Jets ‘Audible’

Another leak studied by the journalist is the text of an interview conducted by a Dutch police officer on 28 July 2015 with a male witness from Ukraine, as well as the man’s in-depth email where he described the timeline of events.

He reportedly recalled two fighter jets in the sky circling over the town a few minutes before the Boeing 777 went down following a loud bang over his head and a horizontal white trail penetrating the sky.

“Two airplanes were audible, not the big one, the Boeing, but fighter jets were audible since these were constantly flying overhead, the noise had already become familiar”, he is quoted by der Werff as saying.

According to the resident of the Torez suburbs, roughly 20 kilometres from Hrabove, where the Boeing crashed, no missiles were fired from the ground in the immediate vicinity.

Separately, he assumed the earlier circulated photos of the incident contain inconsistencies.

“This photograph that served as evidence of the missile is erroneous, since the photograph showed different weather conditions”,  the man explained, adding:

“Because at that time the sky was rather heavily overcast. The position of the Sun in that photograph is unlike the Sun you see at 17:00 hrs”.

Image Metadata Altered?

Then there is another leak suggesting that roughly a year after the crash, between 22 April 2015 and 2 July 2015, imagery specialist Shaun Ellis and geospatial analyst Tim Johns from Australia were still examining the circulated non-primary images dated around the time of the crash and first published by Paris Match.

As part of the so-dubbed Operation AVENELLA, they reportedly concluded that the metadata from these files “appears to have been manipulated. For example, the date modified is prior to the date the file was created”, something that the pros believe is not accidental.

Three of the four analysed images were found to have been antedated: so that the day of creation fell after, not before the modification date.

“Various reasons could explain why this is so, none can be proved without additional information”, Max van der Werff concludes, adding separately that the image dimensions vary, suggesting the images could have been cropped, or intentionally resaved in a smaller format.

More Witness Data

The last but not least leak is a “Record Of Interview” (ROI) between an officer from the Australian Federal Police and German journalist Billy Six. In the shorthand report, Six talks among other things, about those witnesses that saw Ukrainian fighter jets in the sky on the day of the MH17’s demise. Max van der Werff asserted he knows his colleague Six personally.

“The latter confirmed to me he was interviewed a day before the Dutch Safety Board held a press conference on 13 October 2015″, der Werff wrote noting this information matches the transcript mentioning 12 October 2015 as the date of the ROI. The journalist said this is “a strong indication that the batch of JIT documents leaked to us is authentic”. He, however, refused to specify the source who had provided him with the JIT documents.

Dutch-Led Five-Year MH17 Probe

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was downed over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014 as the region was mired in a conflict with the new Ukrainian government set up after a coup in Kiev earlier that year. As a result, all 298 passengers – largely Dutch – and crew on board were killed in the crash.

Kiev and the self-proclaimed republics in the east of the country blamed each other for the downing, with the republics contending that the military equipment they had at their disposal would not allow them to shoot down an aircraft at that altitude. The US and a number of European nations blamed the incident on Russia, a claim that was made even before an official investigation was launched, with the West repeatedly citing Russia being at odds with Ukraine over Crimea and Donbass.

A Joint Investigative Team (JIT) consisting of Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine was set up to probe the MH17 case, but Russia was left out of the process despite the latter’s offers of assistance and readiness to help investigate the incident.

The JIT probe concluded last year that the aircraft was downed by a Buk missile, purportedly launched from a Russian anti-aircraft missile brigade stationed in the city of Kursk, not far from the Ukrainian border.

However, no concrete evidence has hitherto been provided as proof, with the Russian side dissatisfied by the Netherlands’ unwillingness to make use of Russia’s domestic investigation results.

Three Russian nationals were charged with murder – Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, and Oleg Pulato. One Ukrainian, Leonid Kharchenko has also been charged, with a trial scheduled for 9 March.

February 18, 2020 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

MH17: Five years of one-sided propaganda and investigation from the Dutch government’s JIT team

By Sonja van den Ende | November 25, 2019

Five years ago on July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was blown out of the sky while flying over Eastern Ukraine. It was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. All 283 passengers (mainly Dutch) and 15 crew members on board were killed. It was immediately claimed that Russia was responsible, something that Russia vehemently denies. Much has been written and argued, but now the team of Bonanza Media made some independent research that resulted in the documentary; Call For Justice MH17 , which was shown on the 26th October 2019 in The Hague, the Netherlands. The JIT (Joint Investigation Team) of the Netherlands, says it has four suspects and they ought to be tried at a court in the Netherlands, five years after the crash. They didn’t  consider the investigative documentary Call For Justice MH17 to be part of the evidence, in fact they didn’t bother to look at  it or send at least a member of the JIT team when the documentary was presented in the Hague, also the regular Dutch main stream media (MSM) was absent at the presentation.

A lot of questions remain, especially the non-professional inquiry of the Dutch Government, conducted by the so-called JIT team. On November 21 2019, the Dutch police issued a warrant, the so-called “MH17 Witness Appeal November 2019 ,“ to be read on the website of  the Dutch Police. It claims the team had deciphered telephone talks between the Donbass – East Ukrainian leaders, the Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu and Putin’s aide Vladislav Surkov. But why now, 5 years after the crash? Where is the logic here?

In June 2015 the JIT already released the Trial information according to which four suspects, Igor GIRKIN, Sergey DUBINSKIY, Oleg PULATOV and Leonid KHARCHENKO, will be prosecuted for their alleged involvement in the downing of flight MH17. The criminal proceedings will take place before the district court in The Hague, to be held in the Schiphol Judicial Complex. The first court session will be held on March 9, 2020, from 10:00 AM (Central European Time). And the Dutch Government is well aware that the suspects will most likely not attend the trial.

In 2014 and 2015 the Dutch Government in cooperation with the JIT team and the Dutch police released some intercepted so-called phone calls allegedly between the 53rd Anti Aircraft Missile Brigade (AAMB) from Kursk in the Russian Federation, the suspect Kharchenko and a certain suspect caled “Ryazan”.  Based on this information the JIT claims;  The JIT does have evidence from other sources (which they don’t reveal) that at that time, Russian soldiers of the 53rd Brigade from Kursk were present near the border with Eastern Ukraine.

Presented as evidence, was a chat from a soldier, he served at the 53rd AAMB located in Kursk, his chat  with Anastasia, persumably his girlfriend, is seen by the JIT as evidence, meager evidence. Also, they retrieved some photographs of the 53rd AAMB where soldiers are to be seen. But they were not in Ukraine, they were at the border in the Russian Federation, this evidence is pure “speculation” and most likely not fit for evidence in a trial.

Also, their so-called evidence on Vladislav Surkov, a high official at the Russian Government and Putin’s aide is a sham. The only evidence they have is a newspaper article where the Prime Minister Aleksander Borodai of the Republic of Donetsk mentioned that Vladislav Surkov, a high official at the Russian Government, “is of great support to the Donetsk People’s Republic” and “truly our man in the Kremlin”. Based on this and the above mentioned evidence they speculate that the leaders of Donetsk shot down Malaysian Flight 17, with help of the Russian Federation!

Furthermore, the Dutch JIT team calls the Russian Minister of Defence Sergey Shoygu an important  suspect. According to the regular Dutch MSM and the JIT team (it shows that the regular MSM in the Netherlands is not doing any investigation and their journalism is a scam) Minister Shoygu gave direct orders to shot down the MH17. They make many mistakes in their regular MSM quoting the Audio evidence where Borodai allegedly speaks to “someone” saying that Surkov is “truly”our man”, but no word in the audio is mentioned about Sergey Shoygu. He gave the orders they claim, which is totally baseless and why would the Russian Government want to shoot down a passenger plain on purpose?

They also claim that the BUK TELAR 53, was sent by the AAMB from Kursk to Ukraine and this BUK TELAR 53 was used to shot down the MH17, the above mentioned suspects by the JIT were, according to the JIT, all involved in one way or another in the MH17 downing.  Pure speculation, I would call it.  Stories in the regular Dutch MSM, especially De Telegraaf were based on merely  “non-investigating ” evidence and inadequate information. I would like to state that none of the so-called regular newspapers went to Ukraine to do any independent investigation on the ground, only the JIT team was present, no Russians, no Malaysians. That fact brings you to the conclusion that it is and was a one-sided investigation, resulted in most likely “fake” propaganda news from the regular MSM and the Dutch Government. The only investigation, on the ground, comes from the documentary makers of BONANZA.

Conclusion

The investigation and the trial can be called a “sham”. Their evidence is meager and most likely no court would prosecute based on their founding. The latest developments show that it is has not been taken seriously: witnesses to the shooting of flight MH17 could be offered a new life in Australia to protect them from reprisals if they come forward with information, or be promised relocation, witness protection in return for information. Also, it is well-known that after the collapse of the former Soviet Union (USSR), which Ukraine was a part of, BUK’s and other military equipment were left in Ukraine. I remember well when there were many scandals about “plutonium and depleted uranium” left behind.

As I stated in my previous article, the Dutch National Navigation Authority (a governmental institution) should never have allowed a civil commercial airplane to fly above a war-zone and therefore, to my opinion, this should be investigated as well, why they failed to give a warning? Also, the investigitions should focus on Malaysian Airlines, and the reason why they decided to fly over a war-zone. These questions were never raised by the Dutch Government and the JIT team.

So remains the questions why now? Five years after the tragic accident. A new President in Ukraine, perhaps?

After  the tragic accident, the Dutch together with the UK played a big role in the new “Hybrid” war (to be comparable with the “Cold-war”) towards Russia, they indoctrinated their citizens about the “evil” Putin and Russia. But things are changing in the big “outside” world and the current Dutch Government led by Mark Rutte, is not trustworthy anymore. A former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Halbe Zijlstra, lied  about his visit to the Dacha of President Putin and the lies he told the Dutch people were out of proportion. If the Government lies about this, we can conclude that the investigation of the JIT team and the Dutch Government into the MH17 is perhaps based on fiction and lies, to calm down the Dutch people. After all, they called out for justice on MH17 and Russia is an easy “scapegoat”.

November 25, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

MH17 Probe – Perpetual Smear Job on Russia

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 22, 2019

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) tasked with probing the Malaysian MH17 airliner disaster in 2014 is a travesty of legal due process and justice. It is a politically motivated vehicle for smearing Russia. A vehicle designed to run and run for years to come.

Despite its grand-sounding legal title, the JIT is a mockery of jurisprudence. It has, for example, included Ukrainian police in its “fact finding” while excluding Russia. That has ensured bias in the investigation in favor of a party – the Ukrainian state – which should have been treated as a suspect.

The Dutch-led investigation is also infused with a NATO bias which inherently blames Russia for the Ukraine conflict that began in 2014. It is a hopelessly flawed investigation based on prejudice and preconceived notions of guilt.

As with previous reports, the JIT has openly acknowledged cooperating with the private blog site Bellingcat for its purported evidence gathering. How can a supposed official investigation into a mass murder be taken seriously when it is relying on the “expertise” of a freelance blogger-sleuth? Moreover, Bellingcat is complicit in peddling NATO propaganda concerning chemical weapons false-flag attacks in Syria and the Skripal poisoning case.

The JIT report this week into the crash in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 again draws on Bellingcat “information”. That information has been shown by other investigators to be based on fabricated video and audio material. Like previous JIT reports, the so-called “evidence” is vague and relies more on innuendo of guilt. The latest so-called report did not bring any new “evidence” to back up previous claims that Russia is culpable for the alleged shoot-down of the Boeing 777 over eastern Ukraine. The investigators claimed last year that a Russian anti-aircraft brigade based in Kursk entered Ukrainian territory with a Buk missile system. The munition was allegedly used by pro-Russian rebels fighting against Kiev-controlled military to blow the Boeing 777 from the sky.

The passenger jet was on its way from the Netherlands to Malaysia when it was apparently shot down by an anti-aircraft missile while traversing eastern Ukraine. All 298 onboard were killed in the crash.

Russia and the Ukrainian separatist militia have both denied any involvement. They reject the JIT claims as “baseless”.

The videos purportedly showing a Buk missile system being transported from Russia to eastern Ukraine – which Belllingcat and the JIT rely on as evidence – have long been exposed as doctored fakes.

What Dutch-led “investigators” did this week is more PR trick. They name four suspects ostensibly to prosecute for murder in a Dutch court next year. Three of the named persons are reportedly Russian nationals, while the fourth is Ukrainian. All are said to be located presently in the Russian Federation. The JIT will request Russia extradite the alleged suspects to face trial. The JIT investigators claim that the named individuals “prove” a link between Russian military and the Ukrainian rebels.

It is extremely unlikely that Russia will extradite the persons. That is because they will not receive a fair trial given the extreme prejudice of the prosecutors. And also because the Russian state has been continually refused participation in the investigation and fair access to investigation files. Russia’s own significant evidence into the air disaster – and what could have really happened – has also been continually and unreasonably repudiated by the JIT.

The Dutch-led investigators know full well that Russia will not cooperate with their extradition requests. What will happen therefore is that the “indictments” forever hang in the air and serve as a quasi-conviction. This is the same cynical technique of the Mueller Report into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. Mueller indicted several Russian citizens for “meddling” in the elections, inferring they were serving a Kremlin-directed operation. Those accused citizens will never be extradited to face a trial in the US. Mueller knew that and didn’t expect it. The purpose was to let indictments hang in the air to serve as a perpetual smear against Russia.

Unlike the Mueller probe which wound up earlier this year after two years of meandering, empty-handed investigation into alleged “Russian collusion”, the MH17 investigation is set to trundle on for several years to come.

Wilbert Paulissen, head of the national investigative department of the Dutch police, said the investigation has much further to go, according to Radio Free Europe reporting.

“Today, we – the JIT – have taken an important step, but – as we said – our investigation will not end with the prosecution of those four people,” he said.

“There were more people who played a role in the downing of MH17. Investigation also continues into the personnel running the air-defense missile system Buk and into the people who were an important link in the Russian Federation’s decision-making process to provide military support to [separatists in] eastern Ukraine.”

Dutch chief prosecutor Fred Westerbeke was also quoted as saying that Russia was involved in the “crime in one way or another.” He added, the Kremlin is “in a position to tell us what happened… I’m sure they know what happened.”

For the head of Dutch police and the state attorney to make such prejudicial statements against Russia before a court case has even been opened is an astounding contempt of due process. Russia has been convicted and condemned for the Malaysian airliner disaster without even having a chance to present an alternative narrative, never mind defense.

Moscow’s response to the latest JIT accusations this week was one of dismay. The Kremlin said it was “regrettable” and “baseless” –unworthy of a substantial response.

Russia’s own significant evidence in the MH17 catastrophe has been repeatedly rebuffed by the JIT. That evidence reportedly includes radar and air traffic control data which puts the onus of responsibility for the crash on the Ukrainian authorities in Kiev. Why was the plane apparently directed by Kiev along an air route over a war zone?

Most revealing, however, is that Buk missile evidence presented last year by the JIT inadvertently showed that the casing of the projectile allegedly involved in downing the plane indicated it was a 1986 model of that munition. That strongly suggests that the missile did not come from Russia, but rather belonged to the Ukrainian armed forces dating from the Soviet era.

Incredibly, for a so-called international criminal investigation, such highly pertinent evidence from Russia has been shunned. However, this oversight is not incredible when one considers that the real purpose of the Dutch-led JIT is not to uncover the truth and guilt over the MH17 incident. The real purpose is to serve as a NATO vehicle to frame-up Russia for an atrocity. An atrocity which in all likelihood was perpetrated by one of the investigating parties – the NATO-backed Ukrainian regime in Kiev.

June 22, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , , | 2 Comments

‘Politicised From the Start’: Malaysian PM Blasts Dutch-Led MH17 Probe as Anti-Russian Witch Hunt

Sputnik – June 20, 2019

On Wednesday, investigators from the Dutch-led Joint Investigative Team (JIT) announced that they would issue arrest warrants against four suspects, including three Russians and one Ukrainian, in connection with the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in mid-2014. Moscow called the accusations “absolutely unsubstantiated.”

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has called the JIT’s latest claims in the MH17 case politically motivated and unproven.

“We are very unhappy, because from the very beginning it was a political issue on how to accuse Russia of wrongdoing,” Mahathir said, speaking to reporters on Thursday, according to Reuters.

A day earlier, the Joint Investigative Committee (JIT) announced that four suspects, Russians Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, and Oleg Pulato and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, would be issued international arrest warrants on charges of murder, with a trial into the MH17 case set to begin in the Netherlands in March 2020.

Flight MH17 was shot down over civil war-hit eastern Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile on 17 July 2014, with all 298 passengers and crew on board, predominantly Dutch and Malaysian nationals, killed.

The JIT accuses the men of delivering the missile system to Ukraine from a Russian anti-aircraft missile brigade stationed in the city of Kursk, not far from the Ukrainian border. Russia has categorically denied claims that it was in any way involved in the tragedy.

“Even before they examine (the debris), they already said Russia. And now they said they have proof. It is very difficult for us to accept that,” Mahathir said. “It is a ridiculous thing,” Mahathir added. “As far as we are concerned we want proof of guilt. So far there is no proof. Only hearsay,” he stressed.

Malaysian authorities have repeatedly complained of being effectively excluded from the investigation into the MH17 case, with the country’s investigators reportedly barred from studying the airliner’s black box flight recorder and other important data, despite the fact that over three dozen of the 298 passengers and crew who died in the incident were Malaysian nationals.

‘Absolutely Unsubstantiated’ Claims

Almost immediately after the MH17 crash and before a formal investigation was launched, the US and many of its European allies accused Russia of responsibility for the tragedy. The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team invited Belgium, Australia, and Ukraine to join the probe, with Malaysia invited to join in late 2014, and Russia barred from the inquiry despite repeated offers to help.

Russia subsequently conducted its own probe into the disaster, with its investigation including extensive studies of forensic evidence, the unprecedented declassification of previously secret information about advanced military hardware, and a complex experiment by defence concern Almaz-Antey, maker of the Buk type air defence missile thought to have shot down the passenger jet.

Based on these studies, Russian investigators concluded that an older variant of the missile built in 1986 and belonging to Ukraine downed the aircraft, with Russia fully retiring its older stocks of Buk missiles during a broader campaign to modernise the Russian army.

The Russian side has repeatedly attempted to provide Dutch investigators with its evidence, but JIT has shown no interest in the Russian information. In late 2016, Russia sent JIT raw, unprocessed primary radar data containing evidence about the trajectory of the missile which shot down Flight MH17. JIT first complained that it could not decrypt the data, but after Russia said that it would be ready to help investigators decode it, questioned its accuracy and declined to take it into consideration. JIT’s own investigation and the presentations of its findings did not provide any concrete evidence demonstrating Russia’s guilt, instead citing ‘classified information’ which Dutch and US authorities have said they could not divulge.

On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the JIT’s latest claims in the MH17 case as “absolutely unsubstantiated,” saying that the charges were not based on evidence, and aimed only “at discrediting Russia in the eyes of the international community.”

June 20, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Sinister Choreography of the MH17 Probe to Smear Russia

By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 31.05.2018

The Dutch-led probe into the 2014 Malaysian airliner disaster has the hallmarks of a psychological operation to frame-up Russia and to justify further sanctions and aggression from the NATO powers.

The so-called Joint Investigation Team (JIT) released an update last Thursday on its ongoing probe into the MH17 air disaster over Eastern Ukraine, in which all 298 people onboard were killed. The JIT’s latest release moves the accusation of culpability closer to Russia, with the team claiming that an anti-aircraft Buk missile, which allegedly shot down the plane, was brought into Ukraine by Russia’s 53rd Brigade based in Kursk, southwest Russia.

Then on Friday, the day after the high-profile JIT presentation, a news report compiled by US-based McClatchy News and UK-based self-styled online investigative website Bellingcat was published claiming to have identified a senior Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer as being involved in the transport of the missile system.

The Russian GRU officer is named as Oleg Vladimirovich Ivannikov. The report includes a photograph of the named man, who is said to have at least one residential address in Moscow and who used the call sign “Orion”. Tellingly, the McClatchy report claims that news of identifying the Russian military officer was not known by the JIT when it made its presentation the day before. But McClatchy reported that the Dutch-led investigators now want to arraign “Orion”.

Over the weekend, the Dutch, Australian and British governments upped the ante by formally accusing Russia, and demanding that Moscow pay financial compensation to families of the crash victims. Most of those onboard the doomed MH17 were Dutch, Malaysian and Australian nationals.

What we are seeing here is a choreographed sequence trying to give the public impression that developments in the probe are taking a natural course based on “evidence” imputing blame to Russia. The same technique of media psychological operation can be seen in the Skripal poisoning affair in which Moscow is blamed for trying to assassinate a former spy in England. Allegations, purported evidence, and then sanctions (expulsion of Russian diplomats) all follow a choreographed sequence.

On the MH17 incident, Russia has vehemently denied any involvement in the passenger plane’s downing. Moscow says its own investigation into the incident points to the Kiev regime’s armed forces as being responsible, possibly using their stock of Soviet-era Buk anti-aircraft missiles. Significantly, Russia’s investigative results have been spurned by the JIT, while Moscow’s offers of contributing to the probe have been rebuffed. As in the Skripal affair, where the British authorities have also refused Russia’s offers of joint investigation, or Russia’s ability to independently verify the supposedly incriminating data.

In a dramatic twist, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that the missile casing displayed by the Dutch investigators bore features dating the weapon to 1986 when Ukraine was a Soviet Republic. The Russian military said that all such Buk models were replaced by its forces in 2011. Therefore, the alleged offensive weapon presented by the JIT last week could not have come from Russian forces. Besides, Moscow denies that any of its brigades crossed into Ukrainian territory.

The JIT, which includes investigators from Holland, Belgium, Australia, Malaysia and – invidiously – Ukrainian secret services, openly acknowledged in its presentation last week that it is cooperating with the Britain-based Bellingcat website. The latter is cited for its analysis of videos purporting to show the transport of a Russian military Buk convoy through Eastern Ukraine at around the time of the airliner being shot down. Those videos have already been exposed as fabrications.

Now it seems rather strange that the JIT was reported by McClatchy as not knowing of Bellingcat’s next “scoop” published the following day in which it claims to identify a Russian military officer, named as Oleg Ivannikov or Orion, for being involved in coordinating the transport of the Buk convoy, which the JIT says came from the 53rd Brigade in Russia’s Kursk.

The JIT and Bellingcat have collaborated in a previous update to its MH17 probe, in 2016, when the dubious videos were presented as purportedly showing the Buk convoy traversing Eastern Ukraine back to Russia. Bellingcat was cited again in the JIT’s update last Thursday.

That raises the question of why the information claiming to identify the Russian military officer was not available to JIT, even though the latter has worked closely with Bellingcat before? It was the next day when the McClatchy-Bellingcat news report came out, seemingly separate to the JIT presentation.

The sequence suggests a concerted effort to “build” a public perception that “clues” into the cause of the air crash and the incrimination of Russia are being assembled in an independent manner. When, in reality, the sequence is actually a deliberately orchestrated media campaign, to more effectively smear Russia.

Bellingcat’s media activities indicate that it is not the supposed “independent online investigative website” it claims to be. During the Syrian war, it has helped to peddle claims that videos sourced from the White Helmets are “authentic” when in fact there is strong evidence that the White Helmets have been fabricating videos of atrocities on behalf of NATO-sponsored terrorists in order to smear the Syrian government and its Russian ally.

For the Dutch-led JIT to associate with Bellingcat as a source of “evidence” is a matter of grave concern as to the probe’s professional credibility.

Moreover, what is also fatally damaging to the MH17 probe is that the Ukrainian secret services (SBU) under the control of the Western-backed Kiev regime, which came to power in the NATO-backed February 2014 coup d’état, is the source for much of the so-called evidence implicating Russia or the pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine for shooting down the MH17 airliner.

The dubious videos cited by the JIT and Bellingcat were sourced from the SBU. Those videos were purportedly posted on social media at the time of the plane crash by anonymous members of the public. The Russian government has dismissed those videos as fake.

The latest claims by McClatchy and Bellingcat of identifying a Russian military officer are based on allegations that mobile phone intercepts are attributable to the man named as Orion. Bellingcat appears to have expended a lot of effort trawling through digital phone books to identify the individual. The report also relies on embellishment of Orion’s alleged secret military career in Ukraine and South Ossetia by way of lending a sense of credibility and sinister innuendo.

However, the bottom line is that McClatchy and Bellingcat both admit that they are relying on the Ukrainian secret services for their phone intercepts, as they had previously for the videos of the alleged Russian Buk convoy.

The SBU and its Kiev masters have an obvious axe to grind against Moscow. Their partisan position, not to say potential liability for the air crash, thus makes the JIT and subsequent Western media reporting highly suspect.

Such close involvement of a Western media outlet (McClatchy ) with a fake news engine (Bellingcat ) and Ukrainian state intelligence is indicative of coordinated public psychological operation to smear Russia.

The prompt responses from Western governments calling for criminal proceedings against Moscow are further indication that the whole effort is an orchestrated campaign to frame-up Russia.

May 31, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

Russia ‘absolutely’ rejects Dutch & Aussie accusations it’s responsible for MH17 downing

RT | May 25, 2018

Moscow has rejected any involvement in the crash of flight MH17 in Ukraine after the Netherlands and Australia declared Russia “responsible” for the deployment of a BUK missile system that downed the jet in 2014.

Moscow neither accepts nor trusts the results of an international investigation into the MH17 crash as it was not allowed to take part in it, according to the Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“Of course, without being able to be a full participant, Russia does not know to what extent the results of this work can be trusted,” he said.

Peskov echoed the position of the Russian president Vladimir Putin who earlier said that, although Ukraine was included in the probe, Russia was barred from participating in establishing the truth.

Asked if he can confirm that Russia vehemently denies any involvement in the MH17 downing, Peskov replied “absolutely.”

Earlier on Friday, Amsterdam and Canberra said Russia is “responsible for its part in the downing of flight MH17” following a Thursday press conference of the Dutch-led International Investigation Team (JIT). The latter concluded that a BUK missile system from a Russian 53rd brigade was transported to eastern Ukraine and used to down the passenger plane with more than 300 people onboard. The system was then said to have returned to Russia.

“The [Dutch] government is now taking the next step by formally holding Russia accountable,” Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok said in a statement. However, the Russian military earlier said that not a single weapons system crossed the border.

MH17 tragedy may be used to achieve political goals – Lavrov

The country’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that Moscow would not reject closer cooperation on the MH17 probe, but only if the data it provides is included as well. He also compared the case with the Skripal scandal, in which London made groundless allegations and pinned the blame on Moscow, but failed to provide any proof.

“If our partners have decided to speculate on this case, when it comes to the most serious human tragedy, the death of hundreds of people, to achieve their political goals, I leave it on their conscience,” Lavrov said.

Despite the JIT claiming that it conducted a separate probe, it did not move any further than the British investigative group Bellingcat – some reports of which came under fire and were refuted by Russian activists. Among other flaws in the earlier Bellingcat claims was the assertion that the Ukrainian Army had no Buk systems in the conflict area. However, in a countering statement, Russian activists presented reports from the Ukrainian media itself showing Buk missiles in the area prior to the downing of the plane.

Bellingcat’s online investigations have previously raised questions regarding their accuracy. After the group’s founder, Eliot Higgins, published one of his reports on Syria, he was asked to discuss his findings with prominent MIT physicist Theodore Postol. However, the blogger declined the debate and insulted the scientist, triggering an avalanche of criticism on Twitter.

The allegation that the missile belonged to the Russian military had earlier been debunked by the Buk manufacturer, Almaz-Antey. Its real-time experiment showed that the projectile which hit MH17 (Boeing 777) was from an earlier generation and is no longer in service with the Russian military. It was found that the plane was likely shot down using an old 9M38 missile, not the newer type 9M38M1 with distinct butterfly-shaped metal fragments, which were allegedly recovered by the Dutch Safety Board.

Moreover, Almaz-Antey’s findings, which analyzed the angle from which the projectiles entered the cockpit of the ill-fated flight, showed that the most probable location of the launch site could be only on Kiev-controlled territory. Untampered Russian radar data provided by Moscow led to similar conclusions.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Ukrainian forces kept around 20 Buk systems, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The military also stressed that Moscow has not supplied any new missiles to Ukraine since then.

Read more:

Accusations and threats, but where are the facts? – Russia challenges West on truth

May 25, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

Missile that downed MH17 came from Russian military, unit of origin pinpointed – intl investigators

RT | May 24, 2018

A Dutch-led probe says the missile that hit flight MH17 over Ukraine came from a unit in western Russia. Claims about its Russian origin were made by activist group Bellingcat earlier, but it was seriously questioned back then.

The international team investigating the 2014 tragedy, in which Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine, reiterated the claim that it was a Buk missile, but now claims it also pinpointed the exact unit responsible.

The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) “has come to the conclusion that the BUK-TELAR that shot down MH17 came from 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk in Russia,” the head of the crime squad of the Dutch National Police, Wilbert Paulissen, told reporters on Thursday.

The findings also claim that the missile carrier came from Russia and was returned to the country. However, the investigators have apparently failed to move any further than British online investigative activist group Bellingcat, which presented their report nearly one year ago and made the same allegations.

“We realize that the investigation collective Bellingcat has already concluded the same and published it,” Paulissen said, noting that his team carried out a separate, “independent” probe.

The conclusions were announced even though the probe is still unfinished and currently in its “last phase,” and there is still much to be done, according to JIT members. Two questions still remain unanswered – who was responsible for shooting down the plane, and why did it happen? Moreover, further evidence to back up the “revelations” is currently not available to the public.

In 2016, the Dutch-led group said it suspected around 100 people could be linked to the alleged transportation of the Buk missile system to eastern Ukraine and the missile launch. Nearly two years of investigation made their role clearer, according to Thursday’s update, but the number of people involved was narrowed down to dozens, Dutch Chief Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said.

While the latest JIT statement hardly presents anything new, earlier Bellingcat reports were refuted by ‘Anti-Bellingcat’ activists. Russian bloggers, journalists, aviation experts, and volunteers united in a group to highlight significant flaws and inaccuracies in the Bellingcat version of the tragedy.

For example, there is the repeated claim that a Buk missile system was transported through the Russian-Ukrainian border to the place the missile was allegedly fired and then returned. The Bellingcat report used pictures and data from open sources, showing the Buk system on both sides of the border and claiming it was the same. However, the one spotted in Russia was of different modification, the activists noted, pointing out that it contains a “step” on the left side of the system.

The British group’s claims that there were no Ukrainian Buk missile systems in the conflict-zone were also debunked by their Russian peers. They provided various screen shots of Ukrainian media reports picturing the systems belonging to the Ukrainian Army in the same area.

Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that Russia provided uncut radar-location data “that cannot be faked or changed” and “clearly” shows the missile did not come from the direction the investigators claimed. However, all data on the tragedy provided by Moscow was only selectively accepted by the multinational team of investigators, Lavrov said at a joint news conference with his Dutch counterpart, Stef Blok in Moscow.

May 24, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , | 3 Comments

‘Silenced’? Ukrainian Military Pilot Accused of Attack on Boeing MH17 Found Dead

Sputnik | March 19, 2018

Vladislav Voloshin, the Ukrainian combat pilot which some Russian investigative journalists have accused of responsibility for the MH17 disaster, allegedly shot himself Sunday at his home.

According to a press release by police in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, the 29-year-old pilot’s wife heard the gunshot and called the emergency services. Voloshin succumbed to his wounds on route to hospital. According to the police, the pilot was shot by a Makarov pistol, a standard issue military and police side arm in Ukraine. The weapon has been sent for examination. Police have opened a criminal investigation.

Relatives told police that Voloshin had been in a depressed state, and had voiced suicidal thoughts. Friends and family told local media that he was suffering from problems associated with the reconstruction of Mykolaiv’s airport, where he was acting director.

Voloshin’s name came to be associated with independent investigations into the destruction of Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine. In late 2014, a Ukrainian army aircraft mechanic told Russian media that the passenger airliner may have been downed by a Su-25 close air support aircraft flown by Voloshin. The Ukrainian side confirmed that the pilot was in the military at the time, but denied that he flew on the day the Malaysian airliner was brought down.

Speaking to Sputnik about Voloshin’s suspected suicide, Ukrainian politics expert Bogdan Bezpalko said that Kiev’s version aside, “one cannot help but think that the other side may have eliminated him as a dangerous witness who could have lifted the veil of secrecy over the downing of MH17, which would subsequently strengthen Russia’s position.” According to the political scientist, “it’s quite obvious that it was not in Russia’s interest to shoot down this plane, and that all this was a provocation directed against our country.”

In Bezpalko’s view, Kiev and its Western power will continue to do everything they can to see that the truth about the tragedy of flight MH17 does not surface anytime soon. “It’s possible that others who could shed light on this matter will be ‘silenced’ in one way or another. So I don’t think we will learn the truth any time soon. I would like to recall, for example, that all matters related to the flight of Rudolf Hess to Britain [in 1941] remain classified to the British people for 100 years. And I think that the circumstances of the airliner will be made known only when the urgency of the matter disappears,” the observer said.

On July 17, 2014, a Malasyia Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed outside the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard.

Kiev blamed the crash on the Donbass independence fighters, who countered by saying they did not have the means to bring down an aircraft flying at such a high altitude. An inquiry by Dutch investigators concluded that the Boeing was shot down by a Buk missile system, which it alleged was delivered to the militia from Russia and then sent back. Moscow slammed the inquiry’s bias, saying that the investigators’ conclusions were based exclusively on information received from the Ukrainian side. A separate investigation by Almaz-Antei, maker of the Buk system, concluded that the Boeing was shot down from territory controlled by the Ukrainian military.

March 19, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , | 2 Comments

‘Dutch investigators incompetent, or attempting to protract MH17 probe’

RT | January 30, 2017

If Dutch investigators couldn’t decipher data from Russia, they could have asked for help, says military expert Aleksandr Tazekhulakhov. The problem here is that the Dutch have attempted to keep Russian representatives out of the MH17 probe, he adds.

Dutch investigators reportedly said they can’t read the radar images received from Russia in October as part of the investigation into the crash of flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

A spokesman for the Dutch prosecutor’s office claimed the format of the data was not up to international standards and further information is needed to understand the images.

“The Dutch prosecutor’s office requested information they needed for the investigations – and we gave it to them,” says Major General Aleksandr Tazekhulakhov, the former deputy head of the Russian Army Air Defense.

“Just let me remind you how it all happened. In July 2014, a few days after the tragedy, Russia sent the Netherlands the necessary video data. Why? Objective monitoring procedures stipulate that radar screens must be recorded on photo and video. But the Dutch prosecutor’s office told us back then that that kind of data can be tampered with and requested for information in another format. There is no other internationally acknowledged and officially accepted format. Russia then gave the data taken directly from the radar station computer, and it cannot be falsified, changed or altered in any way,” he told RT.

Now, Tazekhulakhov says, “all of a sudden we see that after we officially handed over the information in question,” investigators in the Netherlands say that they cannot read it.

“This is either a matter of professional incompetence or a desire to prolong the process of the investigation as much as possible because we understand very well that involving more officials at various levels means more money,” he said.

There could be a very simple solution, according to the military expert: “If they really cannot read a regular file in a regular format, they can ask for our experts and they’ll help.”

“However, here is another problem: the Netherlands is trying to do its best to keep representatives of the Russia Federation out of the investigation. I see only one reason for this – it’s yet another attempt to put the blame on Russia for something, though it’s not even clear what it is,” Tazekhulakhov said.

Dutch journalist Joost Niemoller, and author of MH17: the cover-up deal says it’s “suspicious” it took the investigators several months to realize they couldn’t decipher the data. They claim it’s in an “unusual” format, but, Niemoller says, this is something that could be seen at the very beginning – when one first attempts to open a file.

“Why did it take so long? This makes me very suspicious. These radar images are, or the radar data now, are very important, because the Dutch authorities claim it was a Buk missile shot by the rebels, more or less together with Russians. But the only information, the only so-called proof they have is from Ukrainian secret services and some pictures on the internet,” he told RT.

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

European experts ask Trump to back new independent inquiry into MH17 crash

RT | January 24, 2017

A group of European journalists and aviation experts has sent an open letter to Donald Trump asking him to back a new UN-run investigation into the 2014 crash of Flight MH17. The current Dutch-led inquiry is “neither independent nor convincing,” they said.

The open letter, signed by 25 journalists, former civil aviation pilots and researchers from Germany, the Netherlands and Australia, was posted on the website of Joost Niemoller – a Dutch journalist who publicly challenged the current investigation into the ill-fated Flight MH17, which was downed over Ukraine in July 2014.

With Trump having taken office as the new president of the United States, the letter says “there is now a real chance of resolving the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine,” and also “hope of improving the quality of the investigation into the alleged shooting down of the MH17.”

The experts suggested that the new investigation should include independent international researchers able to overcome governments’ reluctance to disclose information, and should be overseen by the United Nations. At the moment, Ukraine’s secret service (SBU) plays a major role in providing data to the Dutch investigators, while Russian investigators are being excluded from the process.

In September last year, the Dutch investigators said the aircraft was shot down with a missile from a Buk launch system that “was brought from the territory of the Russian Federation and after launch subsequently returned to the Russian Federation territory.” The investigation stopped short of accusing Russia directly, saying that “we have determined that the weapons came from the Russian Federation.”

Furthermore, the experts’ letter referred to former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who claimed in July 2014 that Washington possesses “satellite imagery” showing the trajectory of a surface-to-air missile from areas controlled by rebels in eastern Ukraine. The US should release the images or recognize that they never existed, the experts stressed.

Notably, the open letter calls for a forensic investigation into the impact holes on the fragments of the MH17 wreckage, and suggests the same damage patterns should be reproduced in a shooting test. Similar experiments have already been staged by Almaz Antey, Russia’s leading missile manufacturer, in July and October 2015, although their results were subsequently ignored by international investigators.

Almaz Antey’s experts said that judging by the T-shape strike elements, the missile was an old Buk-M1 model fired from a Ukraine-controlled area, contesting the preliminary theory by Dutch investigators. “If the Malaysian Boeing was downed by a Buk missile, it was done with an old Buk model which does not have double-T iron strike elements,” CEO Yan Novikov told a media conference in Moscow after the experiment.

The new investigation proposed by Dutch, German and Australian experts should pave the way for “an international tribunal under the auspices of the UN,” the letter said, staffed with judges from countries that are not related to the disaster.

In 2015, speaking on MSNBC, Trump contested preliminary findings of the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), whose report alleged that the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was hit by a surface-to-air missile launched by eastern Ukrainian rebels.

“It may have been their weapon, but they didn’t use it, they didn’t fire it, they even said the other side fired it to blame them,” Trump said. “I mean to be honest with you, you’ll probably never know for sure.”

Read more:

Int’l MH17 crash investigation ‘politically deficient, defective by process’

January 24, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

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