Home MH17 Adjourned MH17 Trial is Still a Travesty of Justice

Adjourned MH17 Trial is Still a Travesty of Justice

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Belgium (in red)

By James O’Neill*

On 17 July 2014 a Malaysian airlines plane carrying 298 passengers and crew en route from Amsterdam to Malaysia was shot down while traversing Ukraine air space killing all on board. Nearly 6 years later a trial began in Amsterdam charging three Russians and one Ukrainian citizen with responsibility for the shooting down of the plane and the subsequent death of all passengers and crew.

That the investigation into the crash was unlikely to meet minimum standards of probity and thoroughness was evident from the very beginning. There have been multiple reasons to draw this conclusion. The first was the composition of the investigating countries. They were firstly the Netherlands, an unsurprising choice as the flight originated in Dutch territory and their citizens were the vast majority of the victims.

The second country was Australia whose inclusion was based on the fact that they lost the second largest number of victims, some 38 citizens and residents.

The other two countries comprising the investigation were the first major clue that the investigation was unlikely to be impartial and thorough. Those two nations were Belgium and Ukraine. The inclusion of Belgium appears to be based on the fact that it is the headquarters of NATO, and hardly an impartial participant. The fourth participant was Ukraine. Even at that very early stage there was evidence to suspect Ukrainian complicity in the tragedy. The intervening years have only solidified that initial suspicion.

The obviously missing participant was Malaysia, the owner and operator of the plane. We only learned later that the Malaysians had refused to join the investigation because of the insistence by the other parties that key elements of the investigation were to remain secret, and that no conclusions were to be published other than by unanimous agreement. To give one of the prime suspects an effective veto immediately undermined the credibility of the investigation.

Nothing that has transpired in the intervening years has undermined that initial skepticism that this was a phony investigation. There were further grounds for believing that the main objective of the investigation, far from determining truth, was really to undermine the so-called separatists, then as now, engaged in a bitter civil war with the Kiev government that had come to power in a coup earlier that year. The separatists, overwhelmingly Russian speakers, were supported in various ways by the Russian government.

Also, in the political mix at that time was the role of Crimea. Again overwhelmingly Russian speaking, the Crimeans had voted in a referendum to re-join Russia, from whom it had been separated unilaterally by then Russian President Khrushchev in 1954. One of the major clues that the investigation into the crash of MH 17 was politically motivated is the constant misrepresentation in the western media of the Crimea sequence of events  The history of Crimea is completely ignored and its return to Russia (by overwhelming popular vote) is invariably portrayed in the western media as a Russian “annexation.”

That is the essential backdrop to the travesty of an investigation that has been carried out by three of the original quartet of nations, the Netherlands Australia and Ukraine, that has now reached a key point with a trial in the Netherlands of four accused persons, namely three Russians and a Ukrainian. The trial was adjourned on 3rd July and will resume on 31 August.

The prosecution case is founded upon an allegation that the plane was brought down as a result of being hit by a BUK missile fired by either the Russians or by the Ukrainian separatists. The rulings of the court thus far make it abundantly clear that they are unwilling to entertain any other explanation. For multiple illustrations of the evidence that the trial is a travesty, readers are invited to visit the website of John Helmer, an Australian investigative journalist living in Moscow, at www.johnhelmer.net. For unexplained reasons the Australian mainstream media has been almost completely missing from reporting on the investigation, as flawed as it is, the travesty of a trial, or even hinting that there is a wealth of evidence that establishes beyond doubt that the trial is a travesty designed to reach a predetermined conclusion of Russian and separatist culpability.

Central to the truth of what actually happened, is evidence relating to what actually shot the plane down. As noted above, the official Dutch view, as supported by the other three nations in the original investigation, was that it was a BUK missile. In partial support of that argument, the Dutch have produced photos of what are said to be part of the missile. The exhibited parts include numbers that identify the missiles characteristics, but also, crucially its identification.

Those numbers identify the missile is one that was transferred to Ukraine from Russia in either December 1986 or January 1987. There is no record of it ever being returned to Russia. It, along with other weaponry, remained in Ukraine following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. According to Helmer, who has followed the trial from the outset, the judge refused to allow Russian military intelligence to reveal where the missile had been between its transfer in the 1980s and 17 July 2014.

To describe that refusal as extraordinary would be a gross understatement. In effect, the court is refusing to permit evidence that would show the missile remained in Ukrainian custody from 1986 to July 2014. That fact alone is sufficient to destroy the court’s credibility.

There is however, even worse news for the prosecution. The evidence of the damage to the aircraft, the evidence relating to the body of the deceased pilot, and the evidence of a large number of eyewitnesses on the ground and in the immediate vicinity of the crash, was the existence of Ukrainian fighter aircraft in the air at that time and in that vicinity.

The Ukrainian government denied that any of their fighter aircraft were operational at that time. If the multiple eye witnesses to such aircraft are believed, that means the Ukrainian government lied. What innocent explanation is there for such a lie? None comes immediately to mind.

Not only the fatal injuries to the pilot, but also damage to the plane are consistent with the plane having been fired upon with considerable accuracy by a machine gun(s) and that could only have come from the fighter jets.

Immediately after the crash, then United States secretary of state John Kerry, claimed that United States satellites had captured the event and that proved a BUK missile had been used. The Americans have never produced the evidence they say they have. Again, if it was the truth, they had every possible reason to show that satellite data. The refusal to do so reinforced the view, already strong for the reasons cited, that the plane was in fact shot down by Ukrainian fighter jets.

In short, the trial is a farce, designed to protect the Ukrainian government and cast aspersions upon the rebel groups and in particular Russia. It is an obvious conclusion to draw that when a person (or country in this case) both tells a lie and promotes such obvious misinformation, they are doing so for wider reasons. In this case the obvious motive is to discredit Russia.

It is little wonder that the trial is not receiving media coverage in Australia or anywhere else to my knowledge apart from the Ukraine and the Netherlands. It is such a shoddy manipulation of facts and evidence that its manifest flaws would be impossible to hide from any observer willing to objectively view this travesty of justice.

The participation of Ukraine in this disgrace is not a surprise, for obvious reasons. That such a fundamentally decent nation such as the Netherlands should lend its name to this fake trial is not only a sad blot on their character, it is a disgraceful betrayal of the scores of Dutch citizens whose lives were sacrificed on this geopolitical scoreboard.

*Retired barrister at law and geopolitical analyst.  He may be contacted at joneill@qldbar.asn.au

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31 COMMENTS

  2. The law has no chance to function, however good or bad it might be, if the terms of reference are wrong. The question should be, why were Malaysian planes taking shortcuts through known military zones. To go along with any other terms of reference is to be part of the cover-up.

    • I should say “the law has no chance to serve justice” because its most clear function it to provide a satisfying income for the participants.

    • The plane was directed there by Ukrainian air traffic control. Also. Where are the Ukrainian flight control tapes. Mmmmm

  3. “That such a fundamentally decent nation such as the Netherlands should lend its name to this fake trial is not only a sad blot on their character, it is a disgraceful betrayal of the scores of Dutch citizens whose lives were sacrificed on this geopolitical scoreboard.”

    Too right. Dear Dutchmen, the dead are crying out from their graves for you to do the right thing.

    • The Dutch aren’t fundamentally decent, they are total mercenaries, how would you expect them to survive on a mudflat between England and Germany !!! They know how to act civilised (apartment life) and they seem to be more spiritually dead than any other race.
      They were smart enough to stay out of the wars and do business.

      • O’Neills “fundamentally decent” with applause from M Maxwell is as wrong as bg’s “total mercenaries”.Sad that no Indonesian nationalists ever comment on this blog, by the way, their grandparents could tell a tale from the 1940s and liberation from Holland.

        By the way, bg, as regards your “stay out of the wars” the Dutch had an international empire and were occupied in WW2, so time to hit the books again.

        The people in a country are not the operators of its foreign policy; the first duty of any nation is to survive in a situation in which there is no overriding monopoly of violence ie world government to bang heads together.

        So the current Dutch and other EU governments are currently vassals of the USA and accede to its wishes. That will also be because Russia, as the biggest country in the world, is chock full of nice raw materials which were happily being plundered in the 1990s until Putin in 2000.

        Which is why when Malcom Turnbull was introduced to Putin as having done business in Siberia in the 90s, Putin stiffened and said softly, oh yes, and what crimes did you commit there?

        As regards o’Neills “fundamentally decent”, currently, the Dutch and all other western EU capitalist governments are busy flooding their countries with aggregate Arab and Black demand so as to create new in-country markets for their goods, drive down wages and sow ethnic mistrust and hence workforce weakness in the face of Capital,

        So as Geerd Wilders has said in Holland, the Dutch government discriminates against native-born Dutch who have paid decades-long into the Dutch social system pay-as-you-go by e.g. granting social housing to newcomers preferentially. And that is just the start of a long list of anti-indigenous policies in the Netherlands.

        But as O’Neill, inasmuch as he ever mentions it, seems to be a “civnat” open border advocate for Australia too,so that lack of Dutch “decency” towards local Dutch ethnics wont bother him.

        He will be another of those LINOs, liberals in name only, abusing Pauline Hanson and proponents of an Aust. population policy as racist and bigoted, etc.

        I wonder by the way how he will react if Morrison lets big numbers of future LNP-voting HK entrepreneur types into Aust.?

        • Hit the books and dig up the Dutch East Company. Pauline Hanson would welcome a airborne conglomeration, to save “our” shores, I’m sure. James causes no discord with my gut, only a small caveat to his email address, that I also noticed. Not a deal breaker however.

          • o, the Dutch being no different are fundamentally decent. Usually quite large of statue but don’t lever that fact, in my experience.

        • Dutch are tall because they stayed out of the wars, I thought everyone knew that, equally the French are short because of Napoleon.
          Being occupied by Germany meant handing over your government in return for leaving the city intact. If they were clever they got some port and rail infrastructure into the bargain. Some places up the coast of Norway resisted and got bombed for their trouble. The fat Germans would do marching in the streets of occupied towns for the thin locals to see. They had brass bands and motorbikes. The occupied would have probably got quite a good deal because the Germans were very sure they were onto a winner.

          • Interesting tune about funerals in Bali if you want someone else’s impression of Indonesia, cover art should get MM going

          • I kind of get your direction, But the Swiss would be 12 foot high on the logic. Not all have the physical impressive attributes, “don’t you worry about that”(qld-ref). Maybe they all avoid basketball so not to show the dominance.
            Bowie was inside the game, I still can not help to listen to his back catalogue.

  6. Justin, I tried posting one particular comment at least a half dozen times yesterday (and once today) and no success each time.

      • If linking URL’s or DNS web addresses.

        https://www.whatever.nosuchthingasia.com
        Change….

        #tagblah.%whatever.nosuchthingasia%.siliconvalleywillcatchup
        We want to chase the lead, can work it out…..

        Keywords will increasingly be filtered.

        Save a working copy of your no doubt important content.
        Wait a couple of minutes.
        No result, u have been flagged for non distribution.

        If you include the attempts, we can see the criteria, therefore modify.

        No way they can “ai” or filter, us.

        Till they seperate with “non-communication”.

        • I’ve been flagged as divisive(use as a tool at one’s discretion) , so I can drop anything currently. So I link this.(hopefully, always recheck link to intent).

  7. Every note typed in is traceable – the cyber surveillance gulag. Seven years ago, unimaginable, these days all encompassing. A century since Tavistock conception, world domination complete.
    Crown kabal communist – mark of the beast – dystopian slavery.

    • Agreed, so use the keyboard carefully if your unsure of who’s ground your upon.
      I’m sure of the turf, so I will stick to them, till I find a bigger stick.
      *56

      if having troubles posting as above, keep saying. Have some work arounds

    • Yup! Simon!
      James has a documented track record here on gumshoes of blowing holes in the MH17 “narrative”

      Love his work. Top Bloke is James.

  9. MH-17 was diverted considerably to the north by Ukrainian ATC, and I believe it was told to descend several thousand feet, as the Ukie SU-27’s had an operational ceiling of about 30,000ft.(although CIApedia altered its info on Wikipedia to claim that the SU-27 only had an operational ceiling much lower, so it couldn’t have been the Ukie jets- it has now been changed back) MH-17 was lured to its death by the recently installed Ukrainian govt., courtesy Victoria Nuland of “fuck the E.U”. fame.. The Dutch Safety Board handled the investigation, headed up by a guy called Tjibbe Joustra,This bloke is as Deep State as it gets, being involved in Dutch Intelligence Services. Joustra was appointed Chairman of the DSB in Feb, 2011. He’s a professional liar. Perfect for the job.

    • Your version is more plausible than another version but a few observations:
      1. It’s a false flag that goes nowhere, military war with Russia is m.a.d. and can’t be done, a false flag for a PR war?
      2. The other plane MH380 also went over a reported military zone at roughly the same time.
      “It” was observed by good, normal human eyewitnesses as a fireball descending …
      3. The entire Malay govt was dispatched not too long after due to extreme corruption, Mahatir came out of retirement to handle it.

      I like your material so don’t stop there !!!

  10. Seeing as an adjacent article is focused on Paul Craig Roberts and seeing as PCR had plenty to say about the events relating to the downing of MH17, I thought I’d share some of the things PCR had to say about an event that occurred at around the same time as the MH17 event that did not receive the attention it deserved (because the MH17 incident, conveniently for Israel, sucked out all of the oxygen from the MSM and diverted attention away from this egregious act of genocide).

    The article (dated July 2014) from PCR appears below :

    https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/29/israel-stealing-murdering-way-palestine-paul-craig-roberts/

    Some choice bits below :

    ” The American presstitute media is focused on those who died in the downing of the Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine, in order to blame those 290 deaths on Russia. As far as the American presstitute media is concerned, the murder of 1,200 Palestinian deaths is not happening or if it is, the Palestinians deserve it for responding to Israel’s oppression by firing in frustration primitive rockets that seldom, if ever, hit their targets.

    What is another 1,200 murdered Palestinians? Who cares? Not Washington or the British PM in Whitehall and certainly not the Israelis. As far as Israel and the Great Moral West is concerned, 1,200 murdered Palestinians amount to nothing. They are not even chafe in the wind.

    ” There is only one take on the current Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, which Netanyahu, the demonic Israeli leader, declares will be a “protracted campaign” this time. We are witnessing yet again Israeli war crimes that are supported by the Great Moral West that is so concerned about the deaths of 290 passengers on MH-17 that they are about to drive the world to a major war, while Palestinian casualties pile up so fast that they are out of date by the time you put the numbers in a column. So far more than 1,200 deaths, with injuries to 2,000 children, 1,170 women, and 257 elderly ” .

    In the immediate aftermath of the MH17 event, the corrupt western MSM and corrupt western governments were all talking about imposing sanctions on Russia for it’s alleged orchestration of the downing of MH17.

    PCR countered with this :

    ” One would think that the Great Moral West would be discussing sanctions on Israel and on Washington’s stooge government in Kiev, which is bombing civilian homes, apartment complexes, and infrastructure in provinces where the people object to the Russophobic government installed by Washington in place of the one that they elected. But the Great Moral West only aids the perpetrators of death and destruction, not the victims .

    These unmistakable war crimes, these crimes against humanity are all ignored by the great moral arbiters of the world–the Governments of the West [Australia was front and centre among them] who are shaking their fingers not at Israel but their fists at Russia “.

    ” As Zionists have endeavoured to teach the world for decades, Israel is not subject to criticism. Only Jew-haters, anti-semites, and people who want to gas Jews and boil them in oil criticise Israel. Israel is above criticism, because Israelis are God’s Chosen People and despite being God’s Chosen People suffered the Holocaust.

    This is what the Israel Lobby and the craven American presstitute media do to everyone who criticises Israel’s crimes against humanity and Washington’s protection of Israel’s crimes.

    Anytime you see a person attacked by the Israel Lobby, you know for certain that the person under attack is the salt of the earth.

    The distinctive mark of a moral human being is to be attacked by the Israel Lobby and the presstitute American media ” .

    Gumshoe readers, maybe it is just a coincidence that the attack perpetrated by the IDF which genocided and maimed thousands of Palestinians occurred around the time of the MH17 incident.

    Then again, seeing as Zionist and Israeli fingerprints are all over the events surrounding the MH370 and MH17 incidents, I wouldn’t be so sure.

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