KUALA Lumpur is confident that it will have enough evidence to file a case against the perpetrators of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 tragedy once the international investigation team concludes its probe.
Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail said although investigators were not optimistic of recovering the remaining bodies at the crash site in Grabovo, Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, he said a single body from the 227 body bags returned to the Netherlands, backed with strong evidence, would be good enough for his prosecutors.
The crash site has seen fresh fighting between Ukrainian troops and the pro-Russian separatists in the last few days. The escalation in violence has prevented the international investigation team from accessing the area.
Gani had told Media Prima journalists on Sunday that Malaysia wanted to be the one to try the perpetrators, using its own laws, as the MAS jetliner was registered in Malaysia. Forty-three Malaysians died in the tragedy.
Kuala Lumpur is looking at invoking the Civil Aviation Act, the Security Offences (Special Measures Act) and the Penal Code against the perpetrators who blew the Kuala Lumpur-bound aircraft out of the sky on July 17.
“We need to prove beyond reasonable doubt, not beyond a shadow of a doubt,” he told the New Straits Times after his meeting in The Hague with Eurojust, an agency of the European Union that deals with judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
Eurojust also serves as a coordinating body to collate all the information provided by the 11 nations, whose citizens were passengers on board the flight.
A criminal investigation by Ukrainian, Dutch, Australian, American and Malaysian investigators has begun and a member of the Dutch Public Prosecution Service is present in Ukraine, looking into the probe.
Gani said aside from feeding the international investigation team their findings, the Malaysian investigators on the ground also channelled the information directly to Kuala Lumpur.
The Dutch police had said on Tuesday that a complete recovery of the remains and possessions of the 298 people who died in the tragedy in rebel-held east Ukraine might not be possible.
Visuals have shown that the battle between the two sides had spilled over to the 40km radius of where some of the victims’ remains and parts of the aircraft were scattered. Heavy artillery were also seen fired in the direction of the crash site.
The eight-hour meeting in The Hague saw public prosecutors and investigators from 12 countries involved in the investigation discussing their judicial cooperation strategy, as well as the establishment of a joint investigation team (JIT).
It is understood that Malaysia had conveyed to the meeting of its intention to charge the perpetrators on its own once they have been identified.
Also in the meeting were Ukraine, Interpol and Europol (an EU law enforcement agency facilitating the exchange of criminal intelligence). Russia was not represented in the meeting.
The meeting also discussed ways of broadening and accelerating the investigations.
National member for the Netherlands at Eurojust, Han Moraal, said the JIT would focus first on the technical and forensics investigation in Ukraine, the location of the criminal offence.
“Today’s coordination meeting is a vital step. It provides a valuable opportunity for prosecutors and investigators from all over the world to meet face to face and to further their one goal — to find out the truth about the tragedy.
“The task is considerable, but with such a broad approach and willingness to work together, I hope that we could cooperate in an efficient and effective way to uncover the cause of the crash and seek justice for the 298 victims and their grieving families.”
Meanwhile, Europol, which had also been part of the Interpol Incident Response Team (IRT) team in Kharkiv since July 20, said a secure line via the Europol mobile office is in place in Kharkiv.
This is to ensure the exchange of information was secure. They had also deployed a second mobile office to Ukraine to provide secure communications channels for the countries involved to exchange information among themselves without being compromised.
“Europol has also been involved in assessing the local security and safety situation concerning access to the area in Kharkiv.
“Furthermore, Europol has contributed to the first efforts to map the operation area, recording the position of items of interest, for later use in the investigation,” it said.
-NST
