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Malaysian defence minister to leave for Ukraine within hours - media

SINGAPORE, September 07, /ITAR-TASS/. Malaysia’s government is determined to finish the investigation of the MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine, Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Sunday.

According to the New Straits Times newspaper, Hussein is leaving for Kiev within hours. However no details of his Kiev talks have been disclosed.

“There is no closure until we find justice for MH17. Malaysia demands justice so that those responsible for shooting down MH17 be tried. This requires proof which is being gathered, and accurate information,” the New Straits Times quoted him as saying. “I don’t want to risk our security teams. I want to see for myself whether the safe passage to the crash site is a reality.”

The minister is also expected to visit Moscow and Amsterdam to discuss the course of the probe into the causes of the Malaysian Boeing crash in July.

Apart from that, a probe team of 30 Malaysian experts will also leave for Ukraine within hours. However, it is not yet known when they will be able to reach the crash area. Earlier on Sunday, Malaysia’s Minister of Home Affairs Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the probe team should be back at the MH17 crash site in eastern Ukraine as soon as possible. He said that in several weeks it might already be snowing in the Malaysian Boeing crash area, which would make the fact-finding mission much more difficult.

An international team of investigators had worked at the Malaysian Boeing crash site for less than a week and had to leave the area on August 6 due to security reasons. Malaysia’s Police Chief Ali Abu Bakar said that the experts had managed to inspect less than half of the crash area. They left without taking any fragments away from the crash site.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 which was on route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on July 17. All the 298 people onboard died.

According to preliminary reports, international forensic experts who are trying to identify the crash victims at a military base in the Netherlands have revealed 283 unique DNA samples retrieved from the Boeing 777 crash site. The bodies of 173 passengers have been identified.