Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — A long-awaited investigation by international prosecutors has found that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over east Ukraine two years ago using a missile brought from Russia and fired by Russian-backed rebels. All 298 aboard the plane were killed.
During a presentation today in the Dutch city of Nieuwegein, an international Joint Investigation Team (JIT) led by Dutch prosecutors, said it had concluded “without any doubt” that the flight was struck by an anti-aircraft missile fired by pro-Russian rebels and that it had established the missile’s route from Russia to the launch the site.
“Based on the criminal investigation, we can conclude that flight MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, by a BUK missile brought from the territory of the Russian Federation and that after it was launched, the system returned to Russia,” Wilbert Paulissen, a Dutch investigator, told a news conference.
The JIT consists of representatives from Malaysia, Ukraine, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands, which had the largest number of citizens aboard the flight.
The investigators did not accuse Russia of supplying the missile, saying that the next stage of its investigation would now focus on firmly establishing suspects and bringing criminal charges against them. However, the JIT said it had already identified 100 individuals connected with the shooting and was now working to establish levels of involvement.
The investigation provided the most comprehensive case yet that the missile was fired by rebels and appeared to rule out many other scenarios, mostly put forward by Russia, that Ukrainian government forces were to blame for disaster.
Ahead of its release, Russia has sought to discredit the Dutch investigation, and on Monday its military released what it claimed was radar images showing the missile could not have been fired by the rebels.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, reiterated the claim just an hour before the JIT delivered its findings, saying the facts were “undeniable.”
The JIT investigators, however, refuted that claim, saying that the abundance of evidence it had gathered meant that the additional radar images did not change the overall conclusions of the investigation.
The investigation will now seek to build a criminal case against those responsible for firing the missile. The investigators issued a call for witnesses, saying the investigation was working to establish the chain of command that led to the missile’s firing.
Prosecutors could not give a time frame for the investigation but the JIT is scheduled to continue its work through 2018.
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