THE HAGUE, February 8 /TASS/. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) may resume its investigation into the 2014 Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash in Ukraine if it gets new information, Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer said on Wednesday.
"The JIT has exhausted all scope for investigation. The investigation will therefore now be suspended," she announced at a press conference in The Hague.
"The findings of the investigation do not provide sufficient grounds for the prosecution of new individuals. This does not mean, however, that the JIT is closing the case. The phone lines for witnesses and the MH17 website will remain active so that any insider witness who might wish to tell their story in the future will be able to do so. With this in mind, the JIT agreement will also be renewed," van Boetzelaer pointed out.
"New information or a change in circumstances may give reason to resume the investigation or institute new criminal proceedings," she said.
Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala-Lumpur crashed in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing 298 people from ten countries. In June 2019, the Joint Investigative Team announced that it had identified a group of four people, suspected of being involved in the incident. They were accused of delivering a Buk missile system from Russia to Ukraine. The prosecution demanded life imprisonment for all defendants.
Russian officials repeatedly expressed their lack of confidence in the results of the JIT’s work, pointing to the groundlessness of the accusations and the team’s unwillingness to use Moscow’s conclusions during the investigation.