TRANSCRIPT
It was in mid July of 2014 that an unenviable task fell to then Prime Minister Tony Abbott: delivering terrible news to Australia about the downing of a commercial passenger plane.
“Malaysian Airlines (flight) MH17 has been shot down over the eastern Ukraine, it seems by Russian-backed rebels.”
MH17 had been travelling between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.
That included 38 Australians.
Initially, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the crash.
"Of course, the state over which this tragedy took place is responsible for this terrible tragedy. I have already given the appropriate instructions to the military departments to provide all necessary assistance in investigating this crime.”
But a 15 month investigation by the Dutch Safety Board found Tony Abbott's early conclusion was correct.
Board chairman, Tjibbe Joustra, says Russian backed separatists were responsible.
“The research council concludes that Flight MH17 crashed because on the outside on the left-hand side of the airplane, outside the cockpit a rocket exploded. This rocket is of the type 914M and fits on the rocket of a system that fits on the BUK air-to-ground missile. The rocket was fired from the eastern part of Ukraine.”
A second major investigation was also launched by a group called the Joint Investigation Team.
It was led by the Netherlands and joined by officials from all over the world.
The report found the missile was launched by a Buk installation transported from the Russian Federation to a farm field controlled by rebels near Pervomaiskyi in Eastern Ukraine.
An online journalism collective called Bellingcat also led its own inquiry.
Bellingcat's Elliot Higgins has told Al Jazeera they were able to provide evidence of Russian involvement using digital resources.
“Over the last 15 years we've seen the rise of smartphone technology, so there's lots of people on the ground taking photographs, sharing them on social media, which becomes a really big source of information... We were able to show definitively that the missile launcher came from Russia, the specific brigade it came from in Russia, when it was transported. But alongside that we were able to show different aspects. So we could show the route it travelled on the day; we could show the various soldiers and separatist members who were involved with it. Just purely from publicly available information.”
But while these investigations all came to the same, strong conclusions, accountability has remained elusive.
Russia has always denied involvement.
And it ultimately vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution for an international tribunal to prosecute those found responsible for downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said that members of the Joint Investigation Team were biased against them.
"What are the grounds to be assured of the impartiality of such an investigation? Can this investigation resist the aggressive propaganda backdrop in the media? Can it resist pressure of clear political origin when the causes for the disaster and those who are guilty of the disaster are named in advance and such statements are made by a number of leaders of certain states which form part of the JIT?”
But the international community has maintained their inquiries have never been about politics.
Then Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said it was about justice.
“The exercise of the veto is an affront to the memory of the 298 victims of MH17 and their families and friends. Russia has made a mockery of its own commitment to accountability, enshrined in Resolution 2166.”
It was not until November 2022 that a court case did take place - but while three men were found guilty of murder in the downing of MH-17, in a court in the Netherlands, they were convicted in absentia and are unlikely to serve their life sentences because Russia has refused to turn them over.
Canadian Michael Bociurkiw was one of the first international observers at the crash site, and told CBS News the verdict was important, despite that being the case.
“I think this is a first step in justice being served, in holding Russia accountable for heinous, heinous war crimes.”
Now, a decade on, Labor Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is travelling to the Netherlands to attend the 10th anniversary commemoration for the downing of the flight.
Families of the victims will also be at the official commemoration, including Pieter Ploig, who lost his brother, sister in law and nephew on the flight.
He has told SBS Dutch's Paulien Roessink the past decade has been very difficult for everyone.
“We look back on ten years of MH-17. Ten years of grief for the next of kin; ten years of lonely Christmases; ten years of wistful anniversaries; ten years of endless legal proceedings - and ten years of Russia obstructing all the proceedings.”
Mr Ploig is now the president of Stichting Vliegramp M17, a foundation established to speak on behalf of the families of those killed on that terrible day.
He says the group intends to continue their quest for truth and justice - and honouring the memory of those lost in the tragedy.
“At this moment, we are of course working at the commemoration. We are also monitoring all the legal proceedings. We are representing the next of kin at for instance at the proceedings at the Court of Human Rights... and beside that, we think it's very, very important that the story of MH17 not be forgotten.”
