Canada welcomes the decision of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to hold the judicial process in the case of the downed MH17 airliner of the Malaysia Airlines in the Netherlands and declares its readiness to provide every possible assistance in these efforts, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has said.
“Recently, on July 5, the Joint Investigative Team made up of Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine announced its decision to prosecute the suspects in the Netherlands. Canada appreciates the tireless efforts by the investigative team to bring the facts surrounding this tragedy to light. Canada also strongly supports this decision regarding prosecution and will extend its full cooperation to these efforts,” Freeland said in a statement posted on the website of the Government of Canada.
According to the minister, this approach is an effective way of ensuring that those responsible are held accountable in line with international standards.
“Today, Canada urges other countries to support this effort…,” Freeland said.
As reported, the Boeing 777 belonging to Malaysia Airlines flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) was shot out of the sky killing all 298 passengers on board.
The international joint investigatory group (Joint Investigation Team, JIT), which is comprised of prosecutors and law-enforcement officials from Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and Malaysia, as well as EU legal officials, on September 28, 2016 presented its findings in the criminal investigation of the tragedy.
“The JIT concluded that MH17 was downed by a rocket, Series 9M38, launched from a self-propelled ground-to-missile launcher BUK-TELAR, in a farming area in the region of Pervomaiske village. The area is currently held by pro-Russian militant groups. Investigators said missile complex was delivered to Ukraine from the Russian Federation and returned there after the downing,” the findings said.
On July 5, it was reported that the cases against suspects in the case on the downing of the MH17 flight are planned to be considered in the Netherlands under the Dutch law. This decision was made by representatives of the countries cooperating in the inquiry into this crash – the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Ukraine and Belgium.
In early June 2017, the British investigative journalists group Bellingcat said it found a photo of the Buk 323 missile launcher of the Russian 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade taken before the launcher was used to down the MH17 passenger flight in Donetsk region in 2014.
In mid-November 2016, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said that investigators had established the names of a hundred individuals suspected of involvement in the crime and that they will be named in 2017.
