MH17 admission

[Peach]

He backtracked or RUSSIA backtracked for him actually, why? Also, a CNN freelance reporter is abducted by the rebels:

But in an interview with the news agency Reuters, Alexander Khodakovsky, the commander of the Vostok Battalion in Donetsk, said he knew about the missile system.
"I knew that a BUK came from Luhansk. At the time I was told that a BUK was coming from Luhansk under the flag of the LNR," Khodakovsky told Reuters, making a reference to the Luhansk People's Republic, the principal rebel group in Luhansk.
Luhansk is one of two rebel provinces in eastern Ukraine. The other, Donetsk, is where Flight 17 came down.
"I found out about it when I found out that this tragedy happened. Most likely it was brought back in order to conceal the evidence of its presence," Khodakovsky said in the Reuters interview, which took place Tuesday and was published Wednesday.
He accused the Ukrainian government of provoking "usage of this kind of weapon against a plane with civilians which was flying by."
But Russian media later reported that Khodakovsky later denied that he confirmed that rebels had the missile system, saying his comments were taken out of context. He told the news outlet RT that he was only discussing theories with Reuters and that he did not have information on such a weapon. Reuters said it is sticking by its story

After solemn day, Dutch to receive more MH17 victims - CNN.com

 

[waltky]

MH17 victim found with oxygen mask...

MH17 victim found with oxygen mask
October 10 2014 - One of the people on the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 shot down in Ukraine in July was found wearing an oxygen mask, the Dutch foreign minister and prosecutors said, raising the possibility that some passengers might have known their plane was doomed.

“You know that somebody was discovered wearing an oxygen mask and had time to put it on,” Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans told a talk show on national television late on Wednesday. Dutch prosecutors confirmed on Thursday they were investigating after the oxygen mask was discovered draped around the person's neck. “How and when the mask ended up around the victim's neck is unknown,” the prosecutors stressed. “The Dutch Forensics Institute examined the mask looking for fingerprints, saliva and DNA, but the probe has not revealed any result,” they said in a letter to victims' families which was published online. None of the other victims of the fatal crash that killed all 298 on board - 193 of them Dutch - was wearing an oxygen mask, they added.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was shot down on July 17 while flying over insurgent-held territory in conflict-wracked eastern Ukraine. The findings of an initial report by a Dutch-led team of air crash investigators appear to back up claims that the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile. Kiev and the West have accused Moscow-backed separatists of shooting it down with a surface-to-air BUK missile supplied by Russia. Moscow denies the charge and has pointed the finger back at Kiev. Forensics experts suspended their search for bodies due to clashes between Kiev and the pro-Russian rebels near the crash site northeast of Donetsk, but said they hoped to return once the fighting died down.

A part of the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 is pictured in a field at the crash site, near the village of Hrabove, in Ukraine's Donetsk region

Timmermans, the new incoming vice-president of the European Commission, on Thursday said he regretted making the announcement before victims' families had been informed by prosecutors. “The last thing I wanted to do was increase their pain,” he said. “I should not have said it,” Timmermans said in a press release after relatives reacted with horror to his comment. Prosecutors, who sent their letter in reaction to Timmermans' comment, said they were still investigating the circumstances of the found oxygen mask. Currently, “no conclusions can be drawn from the discovery”, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, the Dutch cabinet said chances of returning to the MH17 crash site were becoming increasingly remote. “It seems impossible to return to the crash site in the short term given the continuous unstable and unsafe situation,” it said in a letter to parliament.

Efforts to retrieve victims' personal belongings and handing them back to relatives also continued, said the letter, signed by the Dutch justice, defence and foreign ministers. Pages in Russian have been set up on both Facebook and the VKontakte social networking sites urging people to report the discovery of belongings or body parts from the crash, the letter said. It also called for the crash site to be made secure to help in further identifying the bodies. “Furthermore, the aim is also to retrieve the wreckage from the area. To do this, access is essential and needed the co-operation from separatists controlling the area.”

MH17 victim found with oxygen mask - World News IOL News IOL.co.za

 

[Steve_McGarrett]

MH17 victim found with oxygen mask...

MH17 victim found with oxygen mask
October 10 2014 - One of the people on the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 shot down in Ukraine in July was found wearing an oxygen mask, the Dutch foreign minister and prosecutors said, raising the possibility that some passengers might have known their plane was doomed.

“You know that somebody was discovered wearing an oxygen mask and had time to put it on,” Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans told a talk show on national television late on Wednesday. Dutch prosecutors confirmed on Thursday they were investigating after the oxygen mask was discovered draped around the person's neck. “How and when the mask ended up around the victim's neck is unknown,” the prosecutors stressed. “The Dutch Forensics Institute examined the mask looking for fingerprints, saliva and DNA, but the probe has not revealed any result,” they said in a letter to victims' families which was published online. None of the other victims of the fatal crash that killed all 298 on board - 193 of them Dutch - was wearing an oxygen mask, they added.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was shot down on July 17 while flying over insurgent-held territory in conflict-wracked eastern Ukraine. The findings of an initial report by a Dutch-led team of air crash investigators appear to back up claims that the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile. Kiev and the West have accused Moscow-backed separatists of shooting it down with a surface-to-air BUK missile supplied by Russia. Moscow denies the charge and has pointed the finger back at Kiev. Forensics experts suspended their search for bodies due to clashes between Kiev and the pro-Russian rebels near the crash site northeast of Donetsk, but said they hoped to return once the fighting died down.

A part of the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 is pictured in a field at the crash site, near the village of Hrabove, in Ukraine's Donetsk region

Timmermans, the new incoming vice-president of the European Commission, on Thursday said he regretted making the announcement before victims' families had been informed by prosecutors. “The last thing I wanted to do was increase their pain,” he said. “I should not have said it,” Timmermans said in a press release after relatives reacted with horror to his comment. Prosecutors, who sent their letter in reaction to Timmermans' comment, said they were still investigating the circumstances of the found oxygen mask. Currently, “no conclusions can be drawn from the discovery”, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, the Dutch cabinet said chances of returning to the MH17 crash site were becoming increasingly remote. “It seems impossible to return to the crash site in the short term given the continuous unstable and unsafe situation,” it said in a letter to parliament.

Efforts to retrieve victims' personal belongings and handing them back to relatives also continued, said the letter, signed by the Dutch justice, defence and foreign ministers. Pages in Russian have been set up on both Facebook and the VKontakte social networking sites urging people to report the discovery of belongings or body parts from the crash, the letter said. It also called for the crash site to be made secure to help in further identifying the bodies. “Furthermore, the aim is also to retrieve the wreckage from the area. To do this, access is essential and needed the co-operation from separatists controlling the area.”

MH17 victim found with oxygen mask - World News IOL News IOL.co.za

Now the mystery is did someone wrap the oxygen mask around his neck at the crash scene or did he put it on himself?

 

[waltky]

Russia Still Denies Responsibility for Downing of MH17, Accusing Ukraine...

Four Years After Airliner Atrocity, Russia Still Denies Responsibility, Accusing Ukraine
July 18, 2018 – Four years after a Russian-made surface-to-air missile downed a Malaysian airliner over separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, Moscow marked Tuesday’s anniversary with recycled denials of responsibility and finger-pointing at the authorities in Kiev. All 298 passengers and crew onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, were killed when the aircraft crashed on July 17, 2014.

A Russian foreign ministry statement and tweets posted by various diplomatic missions denied investigators’ findings that the BUK-type missile responsible for the atrocity came from a Russian military unit. They said that Russia had “sent for disposal” all such missiles in 2011 and so could not have been responsible, whereas Ukrainian forces possessed them “in large numbers.” “It is our common duty to find out the truth in the course of full, unbiased & transparent investigation that must be based on solid facts, not unsubstantiated accusations,” said one tweet, posted by the Russian mission to the U.N. Other Russian messages alleged that the “main cause of the tragedy” was the Kiev government’s failure to establish a no-fly zone for civil aircraft over the conflict zone. And Russia further insinuated that since Ukraine was part of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) looking into the incident, it has the opportunity to improperly influence its findings.

The JIT comprises representatives from five countries affected by the tragedy – Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine – and is being led by the Dutch justice ministry and law enforcement agencies. One hundred and ninety-three of the dead were Dutch nationals.
Two months ago the Netherlands and Australia, which accounted for 39 victims, announced that they hold Russia responsible, after the JIT determined that the missile which brought down the plane originated from Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, based in the nearby Russian city of Kursk. In one of Tuesday’s tweets, the foreign ministry complained that Russia has “faced groundless allegations” by Netherlands and Australia, which have “even demanded that our country negotiate on ‘reparations’ to the tragedy’s victims.” Earlier this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined his G7 colleagues in a joint statement reiterating that they find the investigators’ findings on Russia’s role “compelling, significant and deeply disturbing.”

They expressed support for the Netherlands and Australia “as they call on Russia to account for its role in this incident and to cooperate fully with the process to establish the truth and achieve justice for the victims of MH17 and their next of kin.” The G7 foreign ministers also drew attention to a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted four days after the crash, which called for those found to be responsible “be held to account and that all states cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability.” While that resolution passed unanimously, a year later Russia used its veto to kill a follow-up resolution that would have created a tribunal to prosecute and punish those found to be responsible. (China, Venezuela and Angola abstained.) Last year the Dutch government announced that JIT partner countries would prosecute any suspects who are identified, in Dutch courts under Dutch law.

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