Boxes and bodies handed over
Published on: Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia was now in possession of the black boxes from Flight MH17, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said Tuesday when commending Ukrainian separatists for keeping their pledge to release these and the remains of those from the Malaysia Airlines flight.The Prime Minister also said the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, informally known as "black boxes", will be delivered to the international investigation into the incident once this is decided."They will (be) held securely in Malaysian custody while the international investigation team is being formalised. At that time, we will pass the black boxes to the international investigation team for further analysis," he said in a statement. Najib also said that the train carrying the remains of 282 of the passengers has already arrived in Kharkhiv, where arrangements are being made to move them to Amsterdam.
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Najib announced that the Ukrainian separatist force had agreed to release the remains of victims recovered from the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, as well as the two black boxes recovered from the flight wreckage.The deal - which the Prime Minister struck with Alexander Borodei, the self-styled leader of rebel faction - also entails full access to the crash site so that investigations may begin.Najib acknowledged that there were risks in pursuing the agreement with the separatists, but stressed that his administration felt an obligation to "explore all avenues to break the impasse" over custody of the remains and the black boxes."These were extraordinary circumstances which called for extraordinary measures... after meeting the families, I felt that we owed it to them to act," he said.
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Najib thanked the Malaysian team despatched to Kiev to support the recovery operation, and also urged for the continued cooperation by the rebels to grant full access to the crash site as agreed. Flight MH17 was carrying 298 people, including 193 from the Netherlands, with all on board killed. The jet is believed to have been downed by a surface-to-air missile.
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Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte confirmed Tuesday that his country would lead the crash investigation, which normally would have fallen to Ukraine even though it does not control the area around the crash site.Earlier Tuesday hundreds of Malaysians protested outside the Russian and Ukrainian embassies to denounce the downing of Flight MH17 and demand the perpetrators be brought to justice. About 300 people, most of them wearing black shirts reading "Justice for MH17", gathered in front of the two embassies to hand over a memorandum calling on Ukraine, Russia and the United Nations to get to the bottom of the disaster.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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