Australia will hold Russia accountable for the downing of a Malaysia passenger plane over Ukraine in 2014 that killed 298 people, including 38 Australians.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus made the pledge Thursday as a team of international investigators halted its probe into the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that also killed 196 Dutch and 43 Malaysians.
“Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine and its lack of cooperation with the investigation have rendered ongoing investigative efforts and the collection of evidence impossible at this time,” Dreyfuss and Wong said in a joint statement, Agence France-Presse reports.
The team of investigators said there were “strong indications” Russian President Vladimir Putin personally approved supplying the missile used to shoot down the flight, but halted the probe because there was not enough evidence to prosecute more suspects and Putin has immunity as head of state in any case.
A Russian-made missile slammed into the plane traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, sending it crashing to earth in separatist-held eastern Ukraine, according to AFP.
“There are strong indications that a decision was made at presidential level, by President Putin, to supply… the Buk TELAR” missile system, Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer said Wednesday.
“Although we speak of strong indications, the high bar of complete and conclusive evidence is not reached,” she told a news conference in The Hague.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the decision to halt investigation was a “bitter disappointment” but that “we will continue to call the Russian Federation to account.”
Less than three months ago, a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian in absentia over the downing of MH17. The three men convicted last year — Russians Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko — remain at large and are unlikely to ever serve their life sentences.
Russia has denied any involvement in the downing of MH17. It slammed last year’s court verdict convicting the three men as “scandalous” and politically motivated.
WITH AFP