WHAT’S THE STORY?

A TEAM of international prosecutors investigating the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 say the missile that hit the Boeing 777 was fired from territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels.

All 298 people on board the aircraft died when it broke apart on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

Investigators said a Buk missile launcher was brought into the Ukraine from Russia and was later taken back there. Russia disputes claims that rebels in eastern Ukraine fired the missile.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), led by the Dutch, includes prosecutors from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine.

Chief Dutch investigator Wilbert Paulissen said: “Based on the criminal investigation, we have concluded that flight MH17 was downed by a Buk missile of the series 9M83 that came from the territory of the Russian Federation.”

The JIT findings are supposed to prepare the way for a criminal trial. But the suspects will not be named, although the team has said it would investigate about 100 people over the incident.

Robbie Oehlers, whose niece Daisy was among the crash victims, said: “They [investigators] told us how the Buk was transported and how they came to that evidence from phone taps, photo, film material, video.”

A Dutch Safety Board inquiry last year found that a Russian-made Buk missile hit the plane, but did not say where it was fired from.

WHO SAW THE INCIDENT?

PROSECUTORS say there were a number of witnesses. They played recordings from intercepted calls during their news conference yesterday and said the launch site had been pinpointed by “many witnesses”, some of whom had reported seeing the missile launcher move from Russia into Ukraine.

They also presented pictures and videos to back up this finding, but separatist rebels denied any involvement. Eduard Basurin, a senior officer at the rebel Donetsk People’s Republic, said: “We never had such air defence systems, nor the people who could operate them. Therefore we could not have shot down the Boeing.”

Russia claimed earlier this week that it had radar data showing the missile was not fired from rebel-held territory, but the JIT said it did not yet have access to that data.

A total of 283 passengers, including 80 children, and 15 crew members were on board MH17 when it flew over Ukraine at the height of the conflict between government troops and pro-Russian separatists.

Malaysia Airlines said the plane, which was manufactured in 1997, had a clean maintenance record.

There was a no-fly zone in operation up to 32,000ft in the area where the jet crashed, but the aircraft was flying above the limit at 33,000ft. The airspace over eastern Ukraine was busy with commercial flights that day, with 160 planes flying over the region.

Malaysia’s prime minister said there was no distress call.

THE MISSILE IS KEY THEN?

YES. The Russian firm that manufactures Buk missiles has insisted it was a model no longer used by Russian forces and said its own investigation showed it had been fired from Ukrainian-controlled territory – tallying with the investigators’ findings.

Speaking to journalists outside yesterday’s news conference, Oehlers said it was unclear if it was a Russian or Ukrainian separatist speaking Russian who pulled the trigger. But his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin was: “I ask you – in a friendly way – to give up the people responsible if you know who they are.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov retorted: “If there was a rocket it could only have been launched from a different area. You can’t argue with it. It can’t be discussed.”

What can be discussed is the investigation team’s simulation of what happened: a 70kg warhead best matched the damage on the wreckage. It exploded about four metres above the tip of the aeroplane’s nose on the left of the cockpit. The forward section of the plane was penetrated by hundreds of high-energy objects from it, killing the three cockpit crew immediately. The plane broke up in stages – first the cockpit, then the wingtips and finally the rear of the plane. Sixty to 90 seconds after the cockpit broke away, Investigators say the main body of the plane crashed into the ground upside down.

WHY ARE THE DUTCH IN CHARGE?

THE International Civil Aviation Organisation says that responsibility for an investigation like this normally belongs to the state within which the incident happened. Therefore, the Ukrainian government initiated the initial inquiry.

But most of the victims were from the Netherlands so the Dutch Safety Board was asked to head the main investigation.

Flight MH17 was carrying 193 Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians (including 15 crew), 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians and 10 Britons. There were also four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos, one Canadian and one New Zealander on board.