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In almost nine years of investigation, the slightest debris from flight MH17 shot down over the Donbass by pro-Russian separatists on July 17, 2014, has been returned. Hundreds of wiretaps were analysed, dozens of testimonies heard and calls for witnesses launched. However, the results of these investigations are not sufficient to launch new prosecutions. The Dutch public prosecutor’s office announced on Wednesday February 8 the suspension of the investigation into the perpetrators of the attack on the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight, in which 298 people were killed.
Barring an improbable rebound in the near future and against a backdrop of war in Ukraine, the investigators have delivered their latest conclusions. They target Russian President Vladimir Putin. “There are strong indications that the Russian President has taken the decision to provide the [système de missiles] BUK Telar to separatists » from Donetsk, investigators concluded. But “the evidence is not, as it stands, sufficiently concrete to lead to new prosecutions”.
Uncooperative Russia
To go further would require full Russian cooperation, which is largely illusory today. It would also be necessary that insidersthat is to say witnesses from within the power or the Russian army, approach the investigators. “Our door remains open to them”said Digna van Boetzelaer, who led the team of prosecutors in this case, adding nevertheless that “Under the current Russian regime, they cannot speak freely and would expose themselves to major security risks if they were to speak” to the joint investigation team, made up of representatives of the countries most affected by the attack, the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine.
The investigators’ report further assures that the separatist leaders of Donbass were “in close contact with Kremlin advisers and Russian intelligence services”, which Moscow has always denied. At the time, while the Ukrainian army was adding up aerial victories, the separatists were calling for a long-range missile and “their request is being discussed at the presidential executive office in Moscow”according to investigators. “After that, a request for a heavier air defense system is presented to the Minister of Defense and the President” Cheese fries. “The request is granted. »
The decision to provide military support, including weapons, was up to President Vladimir Putin alone, the investigators’ report said. They point to the fact that the decision had been postponed for a week because, according to a listening, the only one who could take it “was at that time at a summit in France”. Vladimir Putin participated in the D-Day ceremonies in Normandy. But these “directions” remain insufficient to conduct a trial. And, whatever the case, Vladimir Putin enjoys the immunity of heads of state, as long as he is in power.
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