BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS
MALAYSIA Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over the Ukraine with a missile fired by the Russian military, investigators have said.
Wilbert Paulissen of the Dutch National Police said Thursday that the buk missile was fired from inside Ukraine by Russia's military's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade.
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Paulissen was speaking at a presentation of interim results of the long-running investigation into the downing of flight MH17.
"All the vehicles in a convoy carrying the missile were part of the Russian armed forces," he told a televised news conference.
The passenger jet was headed from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when it was was blown out of the sky over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.
Dutch air investigators concluded that the plane left Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport at 12.31 local time on July 17 and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.10am.
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The board also confirmed the plane lost contact with air traffic control at 13.20 GMT, when it was about 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border.
All 298 passengers and crew were killed, including 38 Australians, 43 Malaysians, 193 Dutch, and ten Britons.
"We have a lot of proof and a lot of evidence, but we are not finished," said chief prosecutor Fred Westerbeke. "There is still a lot of work to do."
He said investigators were not yet ready to identify individual suspects publicly or to issue indictments. The question of whether members of the 53rd Brigade were actively involved in the downing of the plane remains under investigation, he said.
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Westerbeke called on witnesses, including members of the public, to help identify members of the crew that was operating the missile system.
He also asked for tip-offs in determining what their orders were and in identifying the officials in charge of the brigade.
A joint Investigation Team (JIT) made up of police officers from Australia, Holland, Belgium, Malaysia and the Ukraine presented the first findings of the two-year Dutch-led probe.
The group concluded the missile did come from Russia and was fired from territory held by Moscow-backed rebels.
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Initially, they said they had identified 100 people who were "linked to the crash or the transport of the Buk" but did not name individual suspects.
But investigators have now narrowed the number of people of interest from 100 to "several dozen".
Russia has always denied involvement in the downing of the jet, and instead blamed a Ukrainian fighter pilot for shooting down flight MH17.
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In March 2018 he was found dead at his home as police launch a murder investigation into his death.
Captain Vladislav Voloshin, 29, had maintained he was the victim of a smear campaign by Russia - which was desperate to deflect blame away from Vladimir Putin.
Last year it was claimed key MH17 witnesses were slowly being "liquidated" by Russia in a bid to ensure silence over the doomed flight.
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