Malaysian aircraft downing: "Strong indications" of Putin's approval for strike

An international team of investigators has said there are “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the supply of the missile to separatists who shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

But members of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in the Netherlands said they did not have enough evidence to prosecute any more suspects and suspended their eight-and-a-half-year inquiry into the tragedy, Al Jazeera writes. As a head of state, Putin also has immunity.

MH17 was shot down by a Russian missile launched from eastern Ukraine as it was on its way to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board the Boeing 777 were killed.

Russia denied involvement in the incident and refused to cooperate with the international investigation.

“There are strong indications that a decision was made at the presidential level, by President Putin, to supply… the Buk TELAR” missile system, Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer said on Wednesday.

Investigators have already confirmed that the Buk brought down the Malaysian plane, which was flying at 33,000 feet (10km).

“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.

The announcement comes less than three months after a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian for murder over the disaster. The three men – Russians Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko — did not appear for the trial and are unlikely to ever serve their life sentences.

Some 196 of those who died in the crash were from the Netherlands and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that while the JIT’s decision to suspend the inquiry was a “bitter disappointment”, the Dutch government would “continue to call the Russian Federation to account”.

Australia, the home of 38 passengers, promised the same.