As you know, today, on November 18, the court of The Hague is to announce the final verdict in the case of the death of the Malaysian Boeing MH17 aircraft, shot down in 2014 in the sky over Ukraine. The victims then became 298 people, including pilots.
The Russian military is primarily blamed for the downing of the plane. Meanwhile, back on October 6, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, drawing a parallel between the sabotage at Nord Stream and the Malaysian Boeing crash in 2014, noted that they are now trying to prevent Russia from investigating sabotage in the same way that Malaysia once was not allowed to investigate the air crash:
“I can give you an example. The story of the Malaysian Boeing, which crashed over the territory of Ukraine. When was Malaysia admitted to the investigation? When was she allowed to be included in the so-called working group? Of course, not immediately, but after a long time. But Boeing is Malaysian. This is already a classic of the genre. This is not the first time the West has done this. I would like to emphasize that in the situation with the Malaysian Boeing, the situation was exactly the same, only not in relation to our country, but in relation to Malaysia as the owner of this aircraft”.
Technical expert Vadim Lukashevich convincingly refutes these words of Zakharova in his blog:
“I’m not ready to speak for the sabotage at Nord Stream - there is too little texture. But about the "non-participation" of Malaysia in the investigation into the death of the MH17 flight, a special conversation...
The myth that Malaysia is excluded from the investigation is a favorite feature of Russian propaganda.
But how did it really happen, and why does this question constantly pop up?
To begin with, after the death of MH17, two different investigations were initiated, which were conducted in parallel, closely interacting with each other, but were completely independent and had different legal status.
The first investigation is a technical investigation by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), which was carried out in accordance with the rules and regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in accordance with Annex 13 to the ICAO Chicago Convention.
It is under Annex 13 (Chapter 1) that Malaysia, as the owner of the Boeing, is the "state of registration", in the register of which the aircraft is entered, and at the same time - the "state of the operator", i.e. the location of the airline that operated the aircraft. Falling into any of the above categories guarantees mandatory participation in the investigation, and Malaysia falls under two at once. Well?
Ukraine, as the "State of Occurrence", notified Malaysia (category a) and b) paragraph 4.1 of Annex 13) of the initiation of an investigation on the day of the death of MH17 - July 17, 2014.
On July 23, 2014, Ukraine delegated a technical investigation to the Netherlands, whose Safety Board initiated its own investigation on July 18, 2014.
Accordingly, it fell to the DSB to properly conduct the investigation and (attention!) on the DSB website we read:
"The investigation into the causes of the crash of flight MH17 was conducted in accordance with the provisions of Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention by an international investigation team in which, after the initial phase, the following states were represented by accredited representatives:
Malaysia: State in which the aircraft is registered and in which the operator [Malaysian Airlines] is located.
Thus, Malaysia was a full participant in the DSB technical investigation (contrary to Zakharova's first statement), and FROM ITS VERY BEGINNING (contrary to Zakharova's second statement).
Here are just a few examples:
- the MH17 flight recorders were handed over to the representatives of Malaysia, who, in turn, on July 22, 2014 handed them over to the DSB for decryption (in which representatives of Germany, France, the Interstate Aviation Committee, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Great Britain, the USA took part, and ICAO);
- the first Malaysian investigators examined the wreckage of MH17 at the crash site as early as 22-24 July 2014;
- Malaysian representatives took an active part in all working meetings and meetings of the DSB; moreover, the first fragments of the aircraft were handed over to the Dutch on August 4, 2014 by Malaysian investigators, and so on.
At the same time, there is evidence that the Malaysians themselves were not always willing to make contacts and transfer information to the DSB - this is something that professional liar Maria Zakharova will NEVER tell you about.
The DSB documents say this:
“In order to investigate the downing of flight MH17, the Dutch Safety Board required information from the Malaysian government and Malaysia Airlines. The Malaysia Airlines branch in the Netherlands initially cooperated with the investigation and provided the DSB with the opportunity to interview various airline employees in the Netherlands. It also provided some of the requested information. However, more At a later stage, this cooperation was (temporarily) suspended by order of the airline's headquarters.
From the very beginning of the investigation, it proved more difficult to organize a survey of employees of the Malaysian government and the airline in Kuala Lumpur. The same applies to obtaining documents requested by the investigators. Over time, in January 2015, DSB investigators were able to speak with several relevant Malaysia Airlines employees in Kuala Lumpur regarding passenger information investigations and flight route decision making.
Ultimately, Malaysia Airlines provided all the information requested by the DSB, but was never able to obtain all the information needed for the investigation from the Malaysian government".
In other words, if you read the published DSB documents (Preliminary report dated 09/09/2014 and Final report dated 10/13/2015 with annexes to it), then the technical investigation had claims only against two of its participants - Russia and Malaysia.
With the criminal (criminal) investigation of the MH17 tragedy, the situation is somewhat different. If the technical investigation was strictly regulated by Annex 13 to the ICAO Chicago Convention (which is a structural subdivision of the UN), then the criminal investigation was conducted by the countries that initiated criminal cases on the fact of the death of MH17 within the framework of national legislation - Ukraine, Malaysia, Holland, Australia and the USA. These investigations required coordination, and for this, on July 28, 2014, with the assistance of the Eurojust agency, a meeting was held between representatives of Interpol, Europol, Ukraine and 11 countries whose citizens were among the victims of the disaster. As a result of this meeting, on August 7, 2014, the international Joint Investigation Team - JIT was formed. It is this group that Zakharova calls the "working group", which supposedly Malaysia was "not allowed to join for a long time". And how was it really?
The answer is in the public domain (published in June 2019) on the website of the Dutch prosecutor's office (of course, unknown to the Russian Foreign Ministry).
It follows that Malaysia expressed its desire to join the JIT only on August 19, 2014, i.e. already 12 days after its creation. And… (attention!) ON THE SAME DAY Malaysia became a member of the JIT.
But the problem was that the JIT was created under the auspices of Eurojust and Europol on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement between the EU countries on the creation of interstate joint investigation teams operating in the single legal field of the EEC. Therefore, JIT could include countries outside the EEC, in which the legislation (its main provisions) did not differ much from the legal norms of the EEC (for example, Australia).
Malaysia could not immediately become a full member of the JIT, since its legislation provides for the death penalty, which is prohibited by the laws of other members of the JIT. After reaching the relevant mutual agreements on this issue, on December 4, 2014, Malaysia became a full member of the JIT.
Thus, Malaysia was originally a member of the DSB technical investigation, and became a member of the JIT when it wanted to, and a full member after three and a half months, as soon as the obstacles due to the national legislation of Malaysia itself were removed.
Once again, Malaysia became a member of the JIT the same day it expressed its interest in it, and a full member 3 and a half months later, when it agreed to remove its domestic legal barriers to doing so. And the website of the Dutch Ministry of Justice emphasizes that "...since then there has been close cooperation with Malaysia, and Malaysian colleagues support all the conclusions and conclusions of the JIT".