The surprising results of the MH17 criminal investigation

[Malintent]

of the passengers on that plane that was shot down, how many were secret operatives?
We can't possibly know.

"commercial passenger plane" means nothing.

It could have been a highly valuable military target, due to the cover being blown on one of the passengers.

I feel this is a more likely scenario than an attempted frame-up.

 

[barbos]

I don't trust these photographs.

Of course there are no such evidence from Zaroschenskoe, nobody is "looking" for evidence there. Whereas Snizhnoe was named immediately by State Department so SBU knew what kind of evidence had to be manufactured.

The scope of evidence is such that it's impossible for anyone to manufacture. Too many different sources from international newspapers to social media to local witnesses to rebels themselves to satellite photos. You don't have to trust any single photograph or other piece of evidence, but the whole picture they paint is pretty clear.

Did you just steal Colin Powell speech at UN about WMD?
Your scope of evidence requires fair amount of bias to make conclusions you do.

All they needed was knowledge that "russian" BUK was in the certain area, after that they could blame it on russians.

They'd have to have this info in advance (or they would not be able to deploy their own BUK in time) and they would have to cover up their own tracks perfectly afterwards. That's assuming the kind of competence I don't think is possible.

Competence can be replaced by dumb luck and brass "balls".

I have said it before and will repeat it again. Assuming russians are responsible then they would not just give BUK to rebels and hope for the best, operators would be russians too, and they would be well trained/prepared and aware of passenger planes. Also the apparent lack of secrecy is suspicious.

And as I have said before and will repeat again likely, the normal procedure for BUK TELAR operator is not necessarily to check for passenger planes, because that is the job for target acquisition radar which in this case was not used.

Which brings the point that russians would have used full system or used other ways to identify the plane.

You work with the equipment you have. You said that Russians would try to be secret, which means making some compromises; in this case using only the TELAR unit without the supporting radar. Also Russia had not and still hasn't officially admitted to having any troops or equipment in Donbas, so most likely they would only use vehicles that Ukrainian army also has so that there would be plausible deniability in case they get captured.

You seem to give way too much credit to both Russian and Ukrainian militaries.

And you give no credit to them, especially to russian one.

I think I'm giving a fairly realistic scenario why they messed up. They were in territory with enemy spies all around, were not using the typical configuration they were trained for, had to move in and out of position as quickly as possible and probably had to plan it on a moment's notice. They did manage to do exactly what they were trained to do though: shoot down what they thought was an enemy aircraft. Assuming that they did not check whether it was a civilian aircraft is not that hard to believe, because during training or in most real life scenarios the airspace would be closed from civilian traffic.

Bullcrap. At the very least russians would do all of that at night.

 

[Jayjay]

The scope of evidence is such that it's impossible for anyone to manufacture. Too many different sources from international newspapers to social media to local witnesses to rebels themselves to satellite photos. You don't have to trust any single photograph or other piece of evidence, but the whole picture they paint is pretty clear.

Did you just steal Colin Powell speech at UN about WMD?
Your scope of evidence requires fair amount of bias to make conclusions you do.

If you had actually looked at the evidence, or even the JIT summary, you would know that's bullshit. But you don't actually want to spend any time actually doing so, when you can just disagree from a position of ignorance, do you?

All they needed was knowledge that "russian" BUK was in the certain area, after that they could blame it on russians.

They'd have to have this info in advance (or they would not be able to deploy their own BUK in time) and they would have to cover up their own tracks perfectly afterwards. That's assuming the kind of competence I don't think is possible.

Competence can be replaced by dumb luck and brass "balls".

I have said it before and will repeat it again. Assuming russians are responsible then they would not just give BUK to rebels and hope for the best, operators would be russians too, and they would be well trained/prepared and aware of passenger planes. Also the apparent lack of secrecy is suspicious.

And as I have said before and will repeat again likely, the normal procedure for BUK TELAR operator is not necessarily to check for passenger planes, because that is the job for target acquisition radar which in this case was not used.

Which brings the point that russians would have used full system or used other ways to identify the plane.

You work with the equipment you have. You said that Russians would try to be secret, which means making some compromises; in this case using only the TELAR unit without the supporting radar. Also Russia had not and still hasn't officially admitted to having any troops or equipment in Donbas, so most likely they would only use vehicles that Ukrainian army also has so that there would be plausible deniability in case they get captured.

You seem to give way too much credit to both Russian and Ukrainian militaries.

And you give no credit to them, especially to russian one.

I think I'm giving a fairly realistic scenario why they messed up. They were in territory with enemy spies all around, were not using the typical configuration they were trained for, had to move in and out of position as quickly as possible and probably had to plan it on a moment's notice. They did manage to do exactly what they were trained to do though: shoot down what they thought was an enemy aircraft. Assuming that they did not check whether it was a civilian aircraft is not that hard to believe, because during training or in most real life scenarios the airspace would be closed from civilian traffic.

Bullcrap. At the very least russians would do all of that at night.

If their target wasn't flying at night, somebody would still see the launch. And they might not have had the luxury of being able to transport the BUK in the cover of darkness.

 

[barbos]

If you had actually looked at the evidence, or even the JIT summary, you would know that's bullshit. But you don't actually want to spend any time actually doing so, when you can just disagree from a position of ignorance, do you?

I did look at some of it now and before, but I came to the conclusion that investigation is biased and I don't trust them.
To be fair, I don't trust Russians either.

If their target wasn't flying at night, somebody would still see the launch. And they might not have had the luxury of being able to transport the BUK in the cover of darkness.

Then there would have been no transport at all. it's not as if there would have been end of the world.

 

[Will Wiley]

There are at least three photographs of the smoke plume, there are tracks on the ground showing that something was fired near Snizhne, there are multiple videos and photos (including publicly available satellite images) of the Russian BUK en route from Donetsk to Snizhe and then through Luhansk (with one rocket missing). .

It's very unlikely any of this "evidence" would stand up in a criminal trial though.

 

[Jayjay]

There are at least three photographs of the smoke plume, there are tracks on the ground showing that something was fired near Snizhne, there are multiple videos and photos (including publicly available satellite images) of the Russian BUK en route from Donetsk to Snizhe and then through Luhansk (with one rocket missing). .

It's very unlikely any of this "evidence" would stand up in a criminal trial though.

Why is it unlikely? We know that there will indeed be a criminal trial, so it's not simply a rhetorical question. At least in this forum when we discussed evidence before (e.g. the Paris match "photo" that we now know for a fact was a still from video), the evidence held up just fine. And that's just based on some amateur internet argument. The criminal prosecutor will certainly be able to do better.

 

[Will Wiley]

the evidence held up just fine.

The evidence has not held up just fine. You still don't understand the difference between an investigation and a trial. A trial is where the evidence is tested.
All you have is a biased investigation where one of the prime suspects was part of the investigation team.

 

[Jayjay]

the evidence held up just fine.

The evidence has not held up just fine. You still don't understand the difference between an investigation and a trial. A trial is where the evidence is tested.

Of course. I was merely pointing out that there will be a trial. For some reason I suspect that when the time comes, you will dismiss it as being biased by some pretext anyway.

Meanwhile, it's not as if we cannot discuss the evidence available to us and use our own judgment in an informal setting such as internet message boards. In this context, the evidence for Russia's culpability has fared rather well. In the previous threads on the subject, for example, you had to give up trying to refute even the Paris Match photo, which has only received more confirmation since then.

All you have is a biased investigation where one of the prime suspects was part of the investigation team.

Ukraine's involvement is necessary by international aviation law, but they don't run the investigation. Furthermore, it's not as if the JIT has ignored the possibility of Ukraine's involvement and taken measures to prevent it from meddling in the investigation. From the Dutch Public Prosecution Service website:

Right at the start, the position of Ukraine in the Joint Investigation Team was discussed with the Ukrainian authorities. After all, Ukraine itself is a party to the armed conflict in which flight MH17 was shot down. Arrangements have been made to ensure the independence of the investigation. In this respect it was agreed that the investigation will be conducted jointly and that the results will be scrutinised continuously by the other members of the JIT, so they cannot be challenged at an international level. A team of Australian and Dutch investigation officers is permanently present in Ukraine, in the so-called Field Office.

 

[barbos]

 

[Jayjay]

Thanks, that was an interesting blast from the past. Anyone who watches this, and the JIT conference I linked earlier, will be able to see the contrast between the two: Colin Powell's presentation had very little evidence and a lot of interpretation and rhetorics, while the JIT presentation focuses on the actual evidence available with minimal speculation.

The conspiracy theories that suggest that "Ukrainian Secret Services" or someone else manufactured all the evidence in Ukraine is ridiculous, because it would require manufacturing and falsifying evidence in massive scale that no other intelligence service has ever been able to do. If Colin Powell's powerpoints are the best that all the resources of the U.S. government could do to in 2003 to try to convince the world that Iraq had WMD, and the handwaving therein is obvious to anyone with half a brain, why should we buy into the idea that Ukraine can somehow do so much better?

 

[barbos]

You see contrast because you want to see it and because you already know one of the presentations was a load of crap.
People who did not know that at the time were pretty satisfied with Colin Powell presentation.

 

[Jayjay]

You see contrast because you want to see it and because you already know one of the presentations was a load of crap.
People who did not know that at the time were pretty satisfied with Colin Powell presentation.

I wasn't. I thought it was a load of bull back then also.

 

[barbos]

You see contrast because you want to see it and because you already know one of the presentations was a load of crap.
People who did not know that at the time were pretty satisfied with Colin Powell presentation.

I wasn't. I thought it was a load of bull back then also.

Good for you, but don't get too confident in your abilities.

 

[Will Wiley]

The evidence has not held up just fine. You still don't understand the difference between an investigation and a trial. A trial is where the evidence is tested.

Of course. I was merely pointing out that there will be a trial. For some reason I suspect that when the time comes, you will dismiss it as being biased by some pretext anyway.

Look, Jayjay. You can't have an independent investigation that involves one of the suspects as one of the investigators. This is always going to taint the investigation.
You can't continue to say "on this one occasion it is ok to have a suspect as one of the investigators, but in other cases it is not ok".

All they had to say was ..."we will accept information from the Ukraine, even though they are a suspect, but they cannot be part of the investigation team".
Why...why...why...why...Why would any investigation have a suspect as part of their team?

There was no "need" to do that. An investigation must not only do the right thing, it must be seen to be doing the right thing.

It shows one thing. It shows without doubt, that they were never ever, ever, ever, ever, going to consider that the Ukraine might have been responsible.

 

[Jayjay]

Of course. I was merely pointing out that there will be a trial. For some reason I suspect that when the time comes, you will dismiss it as being biased by some pretext anyway.

Look, Jayjay. You can't have an independent investigation that involves one of the suspects as one of the investigators. This is always going to taint the investigation.
You can't continue to say "on this one occasion it is ok to have a suspect as one of the investigators, but in other cases it is not ok".

All they had to say was ..."we will accept information from the Ukraine, even though they are a suspect, but they cannot be part of the investigation team".
Why...why...why...why...Why would any investigation have a suspect as part of their team?

There was no "need" to do that. An investigation must not only do the right thing, it must be seen to be doing the right thing.

It shows one thing. It shows without doubt, that they were never ever, ever, ever, ever, going to consider that the Ukraine might have been responsible.

Nonsense. I quoted to you the Dutch Prosecutor's Service website explicitly saying that they did consider that possibility from the very beginning.

It's not ideal, and I'm not arguing the general principle. But under international law the investigation belongs to the country where the incident occurs, and in this case it's Ukraine. Ukraine ceded the lead of the investigation to Netherlands and the multi-country joint investigation team voluntarily, and measures were taken so that Ukraine could not impact the results of the investigation. That's practically pretty much the best you could do under the circumstances. Imagine for a second if Ukraine was left out of the JIT. How would it change any of the results? It would still have to rely on data provided by Ukrainian officials (e.g. phone call intercepts and metadata, radar data) and there would still be a chance of witness statements or such being manufactured by the SBU. The team would still need to scrutinize all the data available to them, with or without Ukraine. So how exactly is the investigation "tainted"?

What you seem to want is that since there is no magical way to bypass an entire sovereign country, then there should be no investigation at all and the culprits should get away scott free. What we have now is as independent an investigation as we can get by any reasonable standard. Ideally of course, there should be an investigative agency that could force Ukraine and Russia to hand over all the data they have, including military communications and persons of interest, but in the real world we are bound by the practicalities of national sovereignty and international treaties.

Besides the trial will be independent, and if the investigation can be shown to be biased that only works in the defense's advantage.

 

[Will Wiley]

if the investigation can be shown to be biased that only works in the defense's advantage.

Which means if Russia or the anti coup forces are guilty they might get off because of the investigation being corrupt. Though that doesn't seem to worry you.
You appear to be quite happy to have a suspect be involved in the investigation even if that means the guilty party gets away with it.

 

[Jayjay]

if the investigation can be shown to be biased that only works in the defense's advantage.

Which means if Russia or the anti coup forces are guilty they might get off because of the investigation being corrupt. Though that doesn't seem to worry you.

It doesn't, because the investigation does not appear to be corrupt at all.

You appear to be quite happy to have a suspect be involved in the investigation even if that means the guilty party gets away with it.

I don't think Ukraine is a suspect anymore. Some persons of interest wanted by the investigation may be Ukrainian but I think the conspiracy theory that this was somehow cooked up by either Ukrainian government or some splinter group within its military is thoroughly debunked by the evidence. As for the guilty party getting away, the only reason for that is Russia's non-cooperation and obstruction, not any perceived corruption in the investigation.

Consider, for example my thought experiment that Ukraine could have caused the accident by deliberately feeding the rebels false intelligence about airplanes, yet kept the airspace open for civilian traffic. Only party who could bring this kind of conspiracy to light besides Ukraine itself is Russia. But they'd have to admit and apologize to their own involvement first.

 

[Will Wiley]

Which means if Russia or the anti coup forces are guilty they might get off because of the investigation being corrupt. Though that doesn't seem to worry you.

It doesn't, because the investigation does not appear to be corrupt at all.

Any investigation is corrupted if a suspect does the investigating,

You appear to be quite happy to have a suspect be involved in the investigation even if that means the guilty party gets away with it.

I don't think Ukraine is a suspect anymore.

Why does what you think matter in this case though. Ukraine had dozens of buks. That alone makes them a suspect.Not to mention other points

 

[Jayjay]

It doesn't, because the investigation does not appear to be corrupt at all.

Any investigation is corrupted if a suspect does the investigating,

The "suspect" did not do the investigating. As I have pointed out many times and you surely know, the investigation was led by Netherlands and Ukraine was merely one member of the team. Ukraine was not in a position to alter the results of the investigation in any way. So drop this tired argument already?

You appear to be quite happy to have a suspect be involved in the investigation even if that means the guilty party gets away with it.

I don't think Ukraine is a suspect anymore.

Why does what you think matter in this case though. Ukraine had dozens of buks. That alone makes them a suspect.Not to mention other points

What other points? The rebels had no air force and Ukraine had no motive for the shooting. As for simply having BUKs, it seems there is no evidence that there would have been an Ukrainian BUK anywhere near the area where MH-17 was shot down. Besides Russia has many more BUKs than Ukraine.

 

[Will Wiley]

The "suspect" did not do the investigating. As I have pointed out many times and you surely know, the investigation was led by Netherlands and Ukraine was merely one member of the team.

The correct approach was to leave anyone who was a suspect off the team.

Accept evidence from suspects but don't allow them to be on the investigation team.

Having a suspect as part of the investigating team corrupts the team.