Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 Crashes in Ukraine

Palinurus said:

[...]

Remarkable rumination of an American anti-fascist freedom fighter:

http://www.sott.net/article/304046-An-American-in-Donbass-The-MH17-report-that-should-have-been

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Hackers target Dutch Safety Board website, may be Russian link

October 23, 2015

A group of cyber spies tried to hack into the Dutch Safety Board website, possibly to try to gain information about the MH17 investigation, news site Nu.nl says on Friday. The hackers may be a Russian team known as ‘Operation Pawn Storm’, the safety board told Nu.nl. The attack was not successful and the council declined to give any more information.

Operation Pawn Storm is being monitored by internet security company Trend Micro, which says the board was the ‘target of the cyber-espionage operation before and after’ it published the detailed report on the shooting down of MH17 on October 13. The hack involved setting up fake servers and phishing attacks ‘in order to collect credentials from personnel… which could give Pawn Storm unauthorised access’ to the real servers, Trend Micro said.

‘Operation Pawn Storm is an ongoing cyber espionage campaign that’s as far-reaching as it is ambitious,’ Trend Micro says. ‘It has been known to target organisations and government institutions such as Nato and the White House, and has been found targeting high-profile political personalities in Ukraine and Russia.’

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voyageur said:

gdpetti said:

Which is why I was surprised that Russia didn't take or share data recordings with those seeking to investigate.... they could or should have been copied them and given to the various parties .. Malaysia, Russia, Ukraine, et al... and doing so in full public display, on camera for all to see, so that no one could cry foul play... not that they wouldn't do so anyway as they are already doing and will continue to do as this new attempt demonstrates. Maybe Putin wasn't ready to make this play on the global chessboard? Which is why the PTB like to keep the players busy, so they don't get time to think and respond, but are forced to react. Going slow is smart if one isn't ready to challenge the system, but if one waits too long, the board will get folded up and the game called based solely on time.... 'time waits for no one'. ;)

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I was at first surprised too,

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International experts called to re-examine MH17 wreckage

Posted on Nov 25, 2015 by Janene Pieters

MH17 wreckage - Dutch Safety Board report (Photo: NL Times/Zachary Newmark)

According to the Public Prosecutor, this three week meeting “must lead to a significant step forward in the criminal investigation and towards legal and convincing evidence in particular”. This meeting will be attended by independent experts from the countries participating in the Joint Investigation team – the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine – with expertise on metals, paints, weapon systems, explosives and ballistics, among other things.

The experts will present the intermediate findings of their investigations, compare their findings and conduct further, more detailed examinations.

Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17th last year. All 298 people on board were killed. On October 13th, the Dutch Safety Board presented its findings in the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the disaster. The Safety Board concluded that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile system.

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Families select Schiphol for permanent MH17 monument

Posted on Nov 26, 2015 by Janene Pieters

Source: Twitter/Shirlee Engel

The families of the MH17 disaster picked Schiphol airport for the national MH17 monument, the Stichting Vliegramp MH17 announced on Thursday.

More than 60 percent of the Dutch victims’ relatives and a number of the foreign victims’ survivors voted on the location for the permanent monument. More than half opted for Vijfhuizen at Schiphol Airport, ANP reports.

One tree for each of the 298 victims will be planted on the site. The trees’ growth will symbolically keep the memory of the victims alive. A monument will also be built. And MH17 memorials and commemorations can be held in the former main building of the Floriade. The intention is to unveil the monument on July 17th, 2017 – exactly three years after the disaster.

The Stichting Vliegramp MH17, which represents the families, will work on arranging permits and financing for the monument.

Schiphol airport is where the victims stepped on flight MH17 and where most of the families said what was to be their last goodbyes. Other proposals for the location of the monument were The Hague, as city of Peace and Justice, and Eindhoven, as the city where the victims remains arrived after the disaster.

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Dutch policeman suspended for selling MH17 mementos

November 30, 2015

A Dutch police official has been suspended for trying to sell relics from last year’s MH17 plane crash via online auction site Marktplaats, broadcaster NOS says on Monday.

The items included a piece of the plane itself, a Malaysian airways packet of tissues and some of the clothes the police officer was wearing while at the crash site in Ukraine. All 298 people were killed when the plane was brought down by a missile, probably fired by pro-Russian rebels.

The advert for ‘a wall decoration featuring items from the MH17 disaster’ has since been removed from the website.

The police officer had put the collection for sale for €1,500. The public prosecution department has declined to say any more about the case and the officer remains in custody, NOS says.

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MH17 evidence may be compromised by Ukrainian secret service: Telegraaf

December 15, 2015

Legal experts are forecasting substantial problems in an eventual criminal case involving those responsible for downing MH17 with the loss of 289 lives, the Telegraaf said on Tuesday.

The paper says the Ukraine secret service SBU, which is delivering a large part of the evidence, is currently surrounded by rumour and potential corruption which may have an impact on the reliability of key material in the case.

The SBU has provided the investigation with tapped phone conversations between pro-Russian rebels shortly before the Malaysia Airlines plane was brought down by a rocket. The Ukrainians were also closely involved in collecting the bodies, wreckage and rocket parts.

Among the potential difficulties identified by the paper: Former SBU chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, who was sacked in June, has been suggested as the brain behind the Hoorn museum art thefts, the Telegraaf said. The works are now in Ukrainian criminal hands.

The ongoing investigation into corrupt Limburg policeman Mark M is also linked to Ukraine. He is said to have had a network of ‘gangsters and members of the secret service’. The paper states that this summer, 22 SBU spies were locked up for corruption and other criminal behaviour.

The ‘noise’ is guaranteed to play a role in any legal case, criminal law professor Theo de Roos told the paper. ‘That goes for the defence but also the judges who will have to look critically at the evidence. The public prosecution department should be looking now rather than later at the integrity of the evidence.’

Questions

The Christian Democrats have described the various SBU scandals as a major risk to the MH17 criminal investigation and want justice minister Ard van der Steur to make a statement.

‘There is little actual evidence,’ said MP Pieter Omtzigt. ‘What there is, may have been compromised to some extent. The evidence was collected too late and now appears to have been collected by dishonest people.’

International law professor Geert-Jan Knoops said there needs to be more effort made to authenticate the evidence. ‘For example, we need to now how the SBU selected the telephone conversations and who was involved in their selection,’ he said.

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Law expert: Corrupt MH17 evidence will make prosecution difficult

Posted on Dec 15, 2015 by Janene Pieters

Criminal law expert Theo de Roos fears that the corruption scandals recently surrounding Ukrainian secret service SBU will make it more difficult to prosecute those responsible for the disaster with MH17. Much of the evidence in the criminal investigation comes from the SBU, the Telegraaf reports.

Evidence provided by the SBU includes wiretapped phone conversations between pro-Russian separatists in the war zone shortly before and after MH17 was shot down. The SBU was also heavily involved in securing human remains, wreckage and rocket parts in the disaster area.

“There is a lot of noise and that will almost certainly play a part in the criminal case” criminal law professor De Roos said to the newspaper. “That goes for the defense, but also for the judges, who will look extremely critically at all evidence.” He believes that the Public Prosecutor should immediately start additional investigations into the integrity of all evidence, before it can be torn apart in court.

Members of the SBU made the news several times over the past years in connection with suspicion of corruption. Most recently the former head of the SBU, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, was connected to art stolen from the Westfries Museum in Hoorn in 2005, which recently surfaced in the hands of a militia group in the Ukraine. Last year the Finnish police also linked him to large-scale antique smuggling, according to the Telegraaf. And 22 SBU spies were sent to jail this year due to corruption and criminal practices.

The CDA is demanding answers from responsible Minister Ard van der Steur of Security and Justice. The party calls the SBU scandals a great risk for the criminal investigation. “There is already little evidence”, parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt said to the newspaper. “And what there is, is compromised to varying degrees. The evidence was collected in the area way too late and now it turns out also by people who are no good.”

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Research: MH17 investigation initially chaotic, not well focused on diplomacy

Posted on Dec 16, 2015 by Janene Pieters

The Dutch authorities’ approach to the disaster of flight MH17 started out unnecessarily chaotic and complex. And the national organization for crisis management did not focus enough on cooperation with the involved organizations and the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, according to a review done by a team of researchers from the University of Twente.

The research was commissioned by the Research and Documentation Center and the Ministry of Security and Justice published the conclusions on Wednesday.

The researchers found that the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security focused too much on itself during the first days after the disaster. This resulted ministries’ parts and services with expertise in the fields of international politics an conflict management only becoming part of the crisis team days after the disaster. After that the cooperation improved and “all parties could contribute”.

The lack of cooperation also affected the victims’ families and friends, sometimes even adding to their suffering, according to the report. Many of the survivors involved indicated that they sometimes received large amounts of information from the government and much of it was duplicates. The survivors also missed a formal confirmation of death for their loved ones and were affected by the many things that went wrong during the repatriation and identification of the victims and their belongings, according to the researchers.

The survivors did however experience the day of national mourning as a positive turning point in how the government supported them.

The researchers did find that the crisis management team paid enough attention to “international political sensitivities” after the disaster to make it possible for successful missions to the disaster area to be organized.

In the Dutch Safety Board’s report on how the disaster happened, the board also criticized the government’s crisis organization, stating that the organization was not functioning properly and the government agencies involved lacked direction.

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The Australian Federal Police and Dutch police and prosecutors investigating the cause of the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17 believe the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) has failed to provide "conclusive evidence" of what type of munition destroyed the aircraft, causing the deaths of 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.

Testifying for the first time in an international court, Detective Superintendent Andrew Donoghoe, the senior Australian policeman in the international MH17 investigation, said a "tougher standard than the DSB report" is required before the criminal investigation can identify the weapon which brought the aircraft down, or pinpoint the perpetrators. Their criminal investigation will continue into 2016, Donoghoe told the Victorian Coroners Court on Tuesday morning. He and other international investigators are unconvinced by reports from the US and Ukrainian governments, and by the DSB, of a Buk missile firing. "Dutch prosecutors require conclusive evidence on other types of missile," Donoghoe said, intimating that "initial information that the aircraft was shot down by a [Buk] surface to air missile" did not meet the Australian or international standard of evidence.

The Coroners Court in Melbourne is the first in the world to hold an inquest into the MH17 crash on July 17, 2014, and the cause of death of those on board. Iain West (right), the deputy state coroner presided, after the state coroner, Judge Ian Gray, withdrew at the last minute. The inquest opened for a single hour of hearing on Tuesday. A second hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, when West will announce his findings. In the UK, where an investigation into the death of 10 British nationals, is being supervised by Leicestershire coroner, Catherine Mason, all court proceedings have been suspended without a date being set for inquest. It was reported in the Melbourne court that British post-mortem experts participated in the Dutch investigations, alongside Australian, Dutch, and German teams, plus a joint Indonesian-Malaysian group.

In the Melbourne courtroom press reporters outnumbered representatives of the families of several of the victims. Of the 28 Australian citizens killed, 11 were from Victoria state; 10 were permanent residents of Australia; and 3 had close ties to Australia. A local newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch reported from the courtroom "the Kuala Lumpur-bound Malaysia Airlines flight... was hit by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine". In fact, Donoghoe of the AFP said this was an unverified claim by the DSB for "a missile of a type previously provided to Ukraine."

In court, in addition to members of the Coroner's staff, there was one government intelligence agent who kept his official identification tag inside his coat, and refused to say whether he was an Australian or American national.

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Twenty Russians wanted for questioning in MH17 downing

Posted on Jan 4, 2016 by Janene Pieters

One of about 20 Russian soldiers fired the BUK missile that brought down flight MH17 in July 2014, according to international research collective Bellingcat. All of the 20 soldiers know who gave the orders and who actually pressed the button, Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, said in an interview with broadcaster NOS.

After discovering last year that the Russian Second Battalion of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade transported the BUK missile system that brought down MH17 from Kursk in Russia to the Ukraine, Bellingcat managed to narrow the about 100 soldiers in the Battalion down to the group of about 20 who were actually involved in the transport and firing, NOS reports. Higgins and 11 volunteers from various countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and America, studied social media sites like Instagram, Twitter and the Russian version of Facebook called Vkontakte for a year. With the help of attendance lists, messages, videos and photos they managed to map the structure of the Battalion, including the names of the soldiers.

One of those involved is Sergey M., the commander of the 53rd Brigade. Due to his position, he “certainly played a role in the downing of flight MH17, because his brigade delivered the ‘weapon'”, according to Bellingcat. Others involved are Dmitry T., the commander of the Second Battalion and nine lieutenants who were in charge of BUK air defense missile systems within the battalion in 2014. And some “very experienced soldiers” were trained to operate a BUK missile system.

“They had to know who of them pressed the button. They also have to know who gave the orders for firing the missile”, Higgins said to the broadcaster.

Bellingcat gave a comprehensive report containing the names of the soldiers involved and their photographs to the Dutch Public Prosecutor two weeks ago. The Public Prosecutor leads the Joint Investigation Team doing the criminal investigation into the downing of MH17. The team consists of investigators from the Netherlands, Belgium, Malaysia, Ukraine and Australia.

“The investigators don’t tell us what they are doing with our information. But they previously indicated that they are happy with it and take us seriously”, Higgins said. “That can also be seen, because the JIT used our discovery of the trailer in which the Russian BUK missile system was transported in an online call for witnesses.”

The Public Prosecutor confirmed to the broadcaster NOS that the Bellingcat information was received. All of the information will “be seriously considered, examined and assessed on its usefulness for the criminal investigation”, a spokesperson said to the broadcaster.

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