MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. The attempts to set up an international tribunal on the Malaysian Boeing accident affect the already politicised investigation into the tragedy, top legislator of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Andrey Purgin said on Friday, on the anniversary of the crash.
"All these projects [to set up an international tribunal] are speculations. Nothing of the kind occurred in the situations, where, for example, Ukraine downed above the Black Sea the plane flying from Israel, or in other situations," he told the Donetsk News Agency. "Nothing of the kind was set up. In my opinion, it is a destructive process."
The investigation has been politicised from the very beginning, "which did not favour less tension in the issue, but on the contrary, it only adds tension to it."
On Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the plane crash is a crime, and it was investigated by the Netherlands and Malaysia as a crime.
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"The United Nations Security Council has got nothing to do with it. No tribunals have ever been set up to investigate passenger plane crashes. The UN Security Council has never created tribunals to investigate passenger plane crashes - it did not do that in 1988 when the Americans shot down an Iranian passenger airliner or in 2001 when the Ukrainian military downed a Russian plane belonging to the Sibir air company. There were no UN Security Council tribunals in other similar cases. Even on the Lockerbie case, which the UN Security Council tackled many times, the trial was held in the Netherlands according to the Scottish laws," Lavrov explained.
"We believe there is no need to put the cart before a horse. The investigation is not yet competed. The UN Security Council resolution 2166 really calls for punishing all the culprits after the investigation is completed. The investigation will be over by October or even later - hopefully, by year end," the Russian foreign minister said.
"In view of all that, two things are the most important for us now: first, the access of all the states concerned, at least those that are represented in the international team, to the investigation results without any discrimination; second, we believe that it’s only after that the question of responsibility for the crash can be considered preliminarily and consultations can be held to discuss the optimal forms of doing that in order not to abuse the powers, prerogatives and the authority of the United Nations Security Council," Lavrov concluded.