Terrorists Obstructing Investigation Into MH17 Crash – Ukrainian Government
(Bernama) – The Ukrainian government claimed that the Russian-led terrorists were obstructing the launch of an investigation on the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) airplane crash in Ukraine on Thursday.
According to the latest posting on the web portal of the Ukrainian government, http://www.kmu.gov.ua, the Russian-led terrorists were preventing access of the international community and foreign governments to the location of the crash.
“The Government was informed that the terrorists moved 38 bodies of the victims to the morgue in Donetsk, where the “experts” with Russian accent claimed that they intend to perform autopsies.
“The terrorist groups are also seeking to obtain large cargo transport to move the remnants of the aircraft to Russia,” the website added.
The website further said, the Ukrainian government officially states: the terrorists, with Russia’s support were attempting to destroy the evidence of this international crime.
“We urge the international community to oblige Russia to withdraw its terrorists from Ukraine and to allow the Ukrainian and international experts to hold a comprehensive investigation on the tragedy,” it added.
The website further said there would be no pardon for the international criminals, nor for those who supported them, who trained them, financed them and supplied weapons to them.
“The (Ukrainian) Government provided all necessary technical equipment and personnel to hold the investigation and forensic examinations, as well as all means to repatriate the victims’ bodies to their respective countries.
“But at this stage the Russian-led terrorist groups prevent this from happening,” the website said.
The MAS flight, MH17, was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it went down in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on Thursday night.
The Boeing 777-200 aircraft was carrying 298 people – 283 passengers and 15 crew.
The Ukraine authorities claimed that the aircraft was shot down.
There is also a claim that 170 Ukrainian experts were working gun pointed at MH17 crash site in the Donetsk region, according to Ukraine Crisis Media Centre website, http://uacrisis.org, a website launched by the Ukrainian government to provide international community objective information about events in the country.
During a briefing at the center in Kiev, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council Information Centre, Andriy Lysenko said search and rescue operation was ongoing at the crash site of MH17 in Sharkhtarsk district of the Donetsk region.
Lysenko emphasized that the search operation was complicated because of the presence of armed terrorists in the area.
“They continue to impede the work of the Ukrainian rescue personnel keeping them under the barrel of a gun,” he added.
Lysenko added the search operation covers an area of 25 sq. km and an area of about 18 sq. km has already been searched, and a team of divers has searched more than 2 sq. km of the water reservoir.
“As at 07:00AM on 19 July (Ukrainian time), 186 bodies had been found,” he said adding that the search operation involved 100 experts of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and 18 items of equipment, together with 70 Interior Ministry experts.
