Probe into MH17 crash doomed to failure if based on premise that Russia is to blame - Kremlin spokesman Peskov
MOSCOW. Oct 1 (Interfax) - The international investigation into the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) crash has been conducted with an a priori biased attitude toward Russia, Dmitry Peskov, the Russian presidential press secretary, said in a televised interview.
"An investigation cannot be conducted based on a paradigm within which people in well-known countries speak and say officially that Russia is to blame just several minutes after the tragedy," Peskov said in an interview shown on Channel One.
"If an investigation is conducted based on this paradigm, it is doomed to partiality and it is doomed to failure," Peskov said.
"You cannot conduct an investigation by dismissing some theories beforehand," he said.
It was reported earlier that an international team of investigators had concluded that the Buk surface-to-air missile system that downed MH17 near Donetsk on July 17, 2014 had come from Russia and was then returned to Russia and that the missile had been fired near the community of Pervomaiske.
A number of Russian experts argued that the absence of a technical inquiry in the International Investigation Team's presentation regarding the MH17 crash was inappropriate.
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was downed over the Donetsk region on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
The International Investigation Team includes experts from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, and Ukraine and is led by a Dutch official.