Kharkiv - It is premature to say when the case over the Malaysia Airlines' Boeing (MH17 flight) crash in Donetsk region will be handed over to judges, Dutch Minister of Security and Justice Gerard Adriaan van der Steur has said.
“So far we cannot talk about any timeframe. A very complicated process continues,” he told reporters at Kharkiv International Airport on Saturday.
People responded to the appeal to witnesses to come forward, the minister said but declined to elaborate for legal reasons.
At present, everything possible is being done to expedite the air crash inquiry and send the case file to a court, he also stressed.
“It is too soon to speak about any date, it will take a lot of time,” the minister added.
The Boeing 777 operated by Malaysia Airlines was flying from Amsterdam (the Netherlands) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) when it was shot down in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board were killed. They included 192 Dutch nationals (one also had a U.S. citizenship), 44 Malaysians, including 15 crew members, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, ten Britons (one also had a South African citizenship), four Germans and four Belgians, three Filipinos, one Canadian and one New Zealander.
According to the preliminary results of the international investigation, the plane was downed after being hit by an external object, most likely a rocket. The Ukrainian government believes that flight MH17 was downed by a Buk missile system, delivered to the militants from Russia. The most widespread theory is that the airline crashed as a result of a rocket attack.
