Showing posts sorted by relevance for query MH17 Pan Am 103. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query MH17 Pan Am 103. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday 10 September 2014

Malaysia Airlines flight 17 and Pan Am flight 103 contrasted

[The following are excerpts from a long report published today on the World Socialist Web Site:]

The Dutch Safety Board’s (DSB’s) preliminary report into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) is being portrayed by imperialist governments and their media spokesmen as confirmation that anti-Kiev rebels in eastern Ukraine shot the plane down with a Russian-supplied Buk surface-to-air missile.

While claims of indirect Russian responsibility for the destruction of MH17 are at the heart of the US-NATO propaganda over Ukraine, the report says nothing of the sort. In fact, it does not even state that the aircraft was shot down. MH17 crashed on July 17, in the war zone of eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers and crew members lost their lives.

The DSB’s report states that, in accordance with the stated “sole objective” of “the prevention of similar accidents and incidents,” it does not “apportion blame or liability in respect of any party”—something that the capitalist media downplays or ignores.

The only basis on which the media can again repeat their assertions that pro-Russian separatists were responsible is the report’s statement that “The damage observed in the forward section of the aircraft appears to indicate that the aircraft was penetrated by a large number of high-energy objects from outside the aircraft” (emphasis added).

But the report never once identifies what it means by “high-energy objects.” It also claims that, even though enough of the wreckage was recovered to confirm that the aircraft appears to have been particularly badly hit above the level of the cockpit floor, DSB investigators supposedly failed to recover or study any of the objects that penetrated the plane.

The report as issued is equally compatible with radar and satellite data presented July 21 by the Russian military, indicating that a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet was in the immediate vicinity and ascending towards MH17 as it was shot down. Missiles and machinegun rounds fired by an SU-25 are also “high-energy objects.” This possibility has not been addressed, let alone refuted by Kiev, Washington or anyone else involved in the investigation.

On August 9 [RB: the correct date is August 7], the Malaysian New Straits Times published an article effectively charging the Kiev regime with shooting down MH17. It stated that evidence from the crash site indicated that the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter with a missile followed by heavy machine gun fire. The report was subsequently ignored by the world’s media. (...)

The DSB does not address the absence of any satellite imagery or radar data, or any other evidence supplied by US intelligence agencies, which operate the most powerful global surveillance network. It is implausible, to say the least, to imagine that Washington’s vast apparatus was paying no attention to the war zone of eastern Ukraine, which is also a regular flight path for many commercial airline flights. (...)

In sharp contrast, following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, photographs of the area taken by a French satellite were delivered to the investigators within hours. The US Department of Defence and NASA also provided the investigation with high-resolution photographs from spy satellites.

Despite Russia continually requesting that the US administration supply the investigation with the images and data it obviously possesses relating to the MH17 crash, it has refused to do so.

[Further posts on this blog about MH17 as compared with, or contrasted to, Pan Am 103 can be found here.]

Thursday 4 December 2014

MH17 and Pan Am 103 compensation claims compared

[What follows is excerpted from an article published in today’s edition of the Daily Mail:]

Eight families who lost loved ones in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 disaster when it was shot out of the sky in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine are preparing to sue Russia, Ukraine and Malaysia.

The Boeing 777 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17 when it was downed, killing all 298 people on board, including 38 Australian citizens and residents. (...)

Aviation lawyer Jerry Skinner, who is based in Alaska, has taken up their case and is preparing to lodge it at the European Court of Human Rights.

Back in July the lawyer first told the Sydney Morning Herald that he could potentially achieve million dollar payouts for the MH17 victims’ families, like he had obtained from Libya for the families of the 1988 Lockerbie disaster.

'Something creative is going to have to be done here because this is too big and too complicated for the judicial system to handle on its own and it involves people who will not yield to the judicial system, such as the Russians and the Ukrainians,' he said.

‘What happened in Lockerbie was that politics got involved and sanctions got involved and we said to the Libyans, if you want to settle this, it doesn't matter what the individuals did [for a living].

‘The parties that are the main participants here are probably the Russians and their allies and also Malaysia Airlines. Both of them bear a lot of responsibility for this.’

Now, Mr Skinner has said he will file a ‘very broad’ claim against Russia, Ukraine, Malaysia and Malaysia Airlines as soon as he gets some final information from the Dutch Safety Board.

[A report published today on the Radio Australia website contains the following:]

An international aviation lawyer is preparing a lawsuit on behalf of families of the Australian victims of the MH17 plane crash.

Jerry Skinner was part of the team that won $US2.7 billion in compensation from Libya over the Lockerbie bombing.

He has been engaged by at least five Australian families who lost relatives when the Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over Ukraine in July.

Mr Skinner said they deserve the same compensation as the Lockerbie families.

"What happened in the Pan Am bombing, when an action is intentional and not negligent it generates more damages, and those damages were in the neighbourhood of $10 million for families," he said.

"In my way of thinking, since this was an intentional act and the nation states sort of took the bait of a low-flying aeroplane, that would be appropriate."

Mr Skinner is preparing the case against Russia, Ukraine and Malaysia while other families consider joining the action.

The lawsuit is expected to be filed with the European Court of Human Rights.

[RB: There is much about this story that I do not understand. Here is just one example. The European Convention on Human Rights, article 35, provides that the European Court of Human Rights may only deal with a matter after all domestic remedies have been exhausted. The Court is primarily a supervisory or appellate body, not a tribunal of first instance. A case arising out of the destruction of MH17 might well end up in the European Court of Human Rights, but I do not see how it could begin there. Where cases seeking compensation were raised following the Lockerbie disaster, they were -- correctly -- brought in domestic courts, not in the European Court of Human Rights.

Jerry Skinner is not a name that I have previously encountered in connection with the Pan Am 103 case. While a number of US attorneys represented relatives of Lockerbie victims in compensation negotiations with Libya, the lead firm was Kreindler & Kreindler.]

Friday 8 August 2014

Lockerbie investigators "hand in hand ... praying for justice"

[Various Dutch newspapers are today running an article headlined De lessen van Lockerbie (The lessons of Lockerbie). What follows are excerpts taken from Dagblad van het Noorden, translated courtesy of Google Translate, as modified by me via my knowledge of Afrikaans. The original Dutch text is appended.]

The Pan Am flight 103 disaster on December 21, 1988 sowed death and destruction in the small village of Lockerbie. Exactly 38 minutes after the plane takes off from London Heathrow, at a height of 10 kilometers, something goes terribly wrong. The ‘Clipper Maid Of The Seas' explodes, falls into thousands of pieces, and destroys much of Lockerbie. Eleven residents and 259 passengers are killed.

Because there were 189 Americans on board, the FBI is also involved in the investigation. The leader of the team was Richard Marquise. With pain in his heart, he looks at what is happening in Ukraine.  “We both have many compatriots lost in a foreign country. But we had one great advantage, and that was that the Scottish police did ​​a very good job. Directly after the disaster there were thousands of police and soldiers on hand to help search for victims and wreckage."

Marquise calls the war in Ukraine a nightmare for the Dutch investigators who ultimately have to find the perpetrators. There are, according to him, so many people who have an interest in ensuring that there is no evidence to be found. International observers have already indications that wreckage has been tampered with. “It is hoped that these were people who did not know exactly where to go looking. So perhaps forensic experts with all their advanced techniques can still find something useful."

Yet there is one bright spot, according to Marquise. The Netherlands already knows that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was probably downed with a rocket.  “The first few days we still had no idea why the Pan Am aircraft had crashed.” (...)

A piece of wreckage, however small, can be invaluable, as became clear in the investigation into the Lockerbie disaster. Investigators found a tiny chip from the timer that activated the bomb in a suitcase. By means of this, investigators eventually exposed the Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. He smuggled the bomb suitcase on board the Pan Am aircraft. But in the absence of this kind of hard evidence it will be a very tough job to identify the perpetrators, predicts Marquise. “Unless someone comes forward who says ‘It was him.’”

What Marquise would like to see is a “golden informant” such as they had in the Lockerbie investigation. (...) [RB: Presumably this is a reference to Abdul Majid Giaka. If that is so, it is interesting that he should still today be being referred to as “golden” after his performance at Zeist.]

If the Dutch - despite all the difficulties - find the perpetrators then a suspect can be arrested even after years of waiting, as the Lockerbie investigators have cause to know. Al-Megrahi, the man who placed the bomb suitcase in the Pan Am aircraft, was a Libyan. That country already had a reputation as a rogue state that was not cooperative. “Gaddafi simply denied that it had happened,” says Marquise.

Only after years of economic sanctions did Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi give in and two suspects were extradited in 1999. One of them was acquitted. Al-Megrahi was imprisoned in 2001 for life. So there was finally justice, thirteen years after the disaster.

Marquise remembers that day like yesterday. He was with the Scottish detectives at Camp Zeist, when the judges delivered judgment. Hand in hand they listened to the verdict, praying for justice. “All those years of hard work had led us to this man. But only when the judge pronounced the word "guilty", were we sure: ‘we got him’.”


De ramp met Pan Am-vlucht 103 zaait op 21 december 1988 dood en verderf in het kleine dorpje Lockerbie. Precies 38 minuten nadat het toestel is opstegen vanaf Londen Heathrow, gaat het op 10 kilometer hoogte vreselijk mis. De ‘Clipper Maid Of The Seas' explodeert, valt in duizenden stukjes uiteen en vermorzelt een groot deel van Lockerbie. Elf bewoners en 259 passagiers komen om het leven.

Omdat er 189 Amerikanen aan boord waren, wordt ook de FBI bij het onderzoek betrokken. Leider van het team was destijds Richard Marquise. Met pijn in zijn hart kijkt hij naar wat er nu in Oekraïne gebeurt. ,,Wij hebben beide veel landgenoten verloren in een vreemd land. Maar wij hadden één groot voordeel en dat was dat de Schotse politie heel goed werk verrichtte. Na de ramp waren er direct duizenden agenten en militairen op de been om te helpen zoeken naar slachtoffers en wrakstukken.''

De oorlog in Oekraïne noemt Marquise een nachtmerrie voor de Nederlandse onderzoekers die uiteindelijk de daders moeten zien te vinden. Er zijn volgens hem zo veel mensen die er belang bij hebben dat er helemaal geen bewijsstukken worden gevonden. Internationale waarnemers hebben al aanwijzingen dat er met de wrakstukken zou zijn gerommeld. ,,Het is te hopen dat de mensen die dat hebben gedaan niet precies wisten waar ze naar moesten zoeken. Zo kunnen forensische experts met al hun geavanceerde technieken misschien toch nog iets bruikbaars vinden.''

Toch is er volgens Marquise een lichtpuntje. Nederland weet al dat vlucht MH17 van Malaysia Airlines hoogstwaarschijnlijk naar beneden is gehaald met een raket. ,,Wij hadden de eerste dagen nog helemaal geen idee waarom het Pan Am-toestel was neergestort.'' (...)

Een wrakstuk, hoe klein ook, kan goud waard zijn, zo is duidelijk geworden in het onderzoek naar de ramp in Lockerbie. De minuscule chip die onderzoekers vinden, blijkt een deel van de timer waarmee de bom in een koffer is geactiveerd. Rechercheurs ontmaskeren hiermee uiteindelijk de Libische geheim agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Hij heeft de bomkoffer aan boord van het Pan Am-toestel gesmokkeld. Maar als dit soort harde bewijzen uitblijven, wordt het achterhalen van de daders een heel zware klus, voorspelt Marquise. ,,Of er moet iemand opstaan die zegt: hij was het.''

Wat had Marquise graag gezien dat er ook in het Lockerbie-onderzoek een gouden tipgever was opgestaan. (...)

Slagen de Nederlanders er – ondanks alle moeilijkheden – toch in de daders te vinden, dan kan het daadwerkelijk arresteren van een verdachte nog jaren op zich laten wachten, weten de onderzoekers van Lockerbie. Al-Megrahi, de man die de bomkoffer in het Pan Am-toestel plaatste, was een Libiër. Dat land had toen al de reputatie van een schurkenstaat waarmee niet viel samen te werken. ,,Gaddafi ontkende simpelweg dat het was gebeurd'', zegt Marquise.

Pas na jarenlange economische sancties zwichtte de Libische leider Muammar Gaddafi en werden in 1999 twee verdachten uitgeleverd. Een van hen werd vrijgesproken. Al-Megrahi kreeg in 2001 levenslang. Zo was er dertien jaar na de ramp eindelijk gerechtigheid.

Marquise herinnert zich die dag nog als gisteren. Hij zat samen met de Schotse rechercheurs in Kamp Zeist, waar de rechters het oordeel velden. Hand in hand luisterden ze naar de uitspraak, biddend voor gerechtigheid. ,,Al die jaren hard werken hadden ons naar deze man geleid. Maar pas toen de rechter het woord ‘schuldig' uitsprak, wisten we het zeker: we got him.''

Sunday 27 July 2014

"We still don’t know why Pan Am 103 was bombed and who ordered it"

[What follows is an excerpt from a long article about the MH17 disaster in today’s edition of The Sunday Telegraph:]

For the relatives and friends of those who died, including ten British citizens and more than 80 children, the uncertainty and confusion will be deeply upsetting. While the most likely scenario points to the involvement of Russian-backed rebels, the question remains whether Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, should also be held to account.

Pam Dix, whose brother died in the Lockerbie bombing, fears that victims’ relatives will suffer ongoing anxiety in the search for the truth.

In the case of Lockerbie, in which a Pan Am jet was blown up over the Scottish town, one Libyan intelligence official was jailed for murder but doubts remain 25 years on about the conviction with many blaming Iran rather than Libya for the atrocity.

“The situation for the families from MH17 is agonising – waiting for news of whether they can get the bodies back, for information about what happened, who did it and why,” said Mrs Dix.

“At least after Lockerbie we could travel to the site to see the debris for ourselves, and investigators could have access in order to establish as many facts as they could.

“Twenty-five years later we still don’t know why Pan Am 103 was bombed and who ordered it. For the MH17 families the investigation will be just if not more frustrating. The political situation in Ukraine and Russia means it could be years before any proper information or evidence emerges.”

[A detailed consideration of the available evidence can be found in this article from 21st Century Wire. Its conclusions are very different from The Telegraph’s.]

Thursday 15 October 2015

"Don't expect your quest to carry much weight"

[What follows is excerpted from a report published yesterday on the website of the Chicago Tribune:]

The Rev John Mosey has advice for relatives seeking justice for their loved ones who died aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Don't expect your quest to carry much weight.

Mosey thought truth would prevail after he lost his teenage daughter Helga, who was a passenger on Pan Am Flight 103 when it exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, just before Christmas in 1988. But as months turned into years and then into decades, he concluded that geopolitical realities had trumped his family's desire to know what really happened.

The British cleric from Lancaster says he thinks the truth about Lockerbie is still being hidden — and has told families who lost relatives when MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, over eastern Ukraine they can expect the same. In face-to-face informal counseling sessions at Lockerbie, Mosey has cautioned MH17 families that the interests of powerful countries like Russia and the United States over the area where the plane was brought down may well eclipse their desire for the straight story.

"We told them they need to really get together as a group, to strengthen each other emotionally and spiritually, and to get hold of a good independent lawyer," Mosey said of his emotional sessions with MH17 families. "I've told them that I hope in their countries the politicians can't control the legal system, which is what happened here (in Britain). That is what they'll be up against."

He's also told them to try and forgive those responsible for the destruction of their families — not just because it's in the Bible, but because you can get "eaten up" by bitterness and anger if you don't.

It's clear after the release Tuesday of a Dutch Safety Board report chronicling how MH17 was brought down by a Soviet-designed Buk missile that MH17 families face many more hurdles before any responsibility for the plane's downing can be clearly established — and compensated.

In the Lockerbie case, it took more than a decade of high-stakes diplomacy before a former Libyan intelligence agent became the only person convicted of downing the New York-bound Boeing 747, killing 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground. Many victims' families believe the full story has never been made public, however.

The Dutch report on MH-17 — challenged immediately by the Russian government and the Russian state-controlled manufacturer of the missile — concluded that a Buk missile fired from Ukrainian territory controlled by Russian separatists brought down the Boeing 777, killing all 298 people aboard. The report stops short of assigning blame, however, so it does little to advance hopes of any criminal prosecution or civil claims.

That will have to wait for the results of a Dutch criminal investigation scheduled to come to a conclusion in January, said James Healy-Pratt, an aviation lawyer representing 50 MH17 families.

"They are investigating what crimes that have been committed and by whom and will recommend charges that should be brought against individuals," he said.

Then comes the hard part: Finding the suspects, arresting them and actually putting them on trial. Healy-Pratt, who also worked on the Lockerbie cases, said this will take time. (...)

Jim Swire, an English doctor who lost his 23-year-old daughter Flora when Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie, said in his meetings with MH17 families they are asking why Malaysia Airlines flew over the contested zone when some other international airlines diverted their flights.

"I think it is likely to be frustrating for them. Many sounded as if they have lost confidence in their own government," he said. "It will be very slow to resolve because international politics is involved."

At the same time, Swire said, the families who lost loved ones in the skies above Ukraine are still grieving, still looking for ways to cope.

"They are faced with a lifetime of trying to adjust to the person that's missing from their family," he said. "It's a lifetime sentence."

Sunday 17 August 2014

MH17 and Lockerbie: a view from the Netherlands

[MH17: Netherlands wrestles with huge criminal case is the headline over a report published today on the BBC News website.  It reads in part:]

Two-thirds of the 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 were from the Netherlands. That is why the Dutch have taken the lead in identifying the bodies, trying to establish what caused the crash and running the criminal investigation.

Western governments suspect that the jet, with 298 people on board, was hit by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian separatists. The rebels and Russia blamed the Ukrainian military for the crash. (...)

This is the biggest criminal investigation ever conducted in the Netherlands.

"Never before have we had a murder case with so many victims," said Wim de Bruin from the Dutch prosecution service, fielding press inquiries from all over the world. Passengers from 10 different countries were on board Flight MH17.

Ten Dutch prosecutors and 200 police officers are involved in gathering and preparing the evidence for a criminal trial.

There are three main questions about the eventual MH17 trial: Where will it be conducted? What crimes will the accused be charged with? How long before we see the suspects in court?

The Dutch prosecutors are still in the initial stages of the criminal investigation, but they have already dismissed speculation that the trial could be held at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The ICC only takes cases if countries are unable or unwilling to prosecute. The Dutch are willing and able.

Under the current plan, the suspects would be extradited to face trial at the District Court in The Hague. But extradition would require the host country's co-operation, once the suspects are identified.

Wim de Bruin says they are considering "several grounds and possibilities" concerning the charges.

"Of course murder, but we also have the crime of 'wrecking an airplane' and we could use international criminal law - that would mean possible charges of war crimes, torture and genocide." [RB: I find it difficult to envisage how torture and genocide charges could arise in this case.]

It is impossible, they say, to give a time frame. The only reference they have is Lockerbie. Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland in 1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 others on the ground. In 2001, a Libyan intelligence officer was jailed for the bombing.

Yet questions remain about the bomb plot - not only the perpetrators but also the motives. In 2003 Col Muammar Gaddafi - later killed in the Arab Spring - accepted responsibility and paid compensation to the victims' families. [RB: The scope of Libya’s acknowledgment was limited to acceptance of “responsibility for the actions of its officials”.]

"With Lockerbie it took three years for the investigation and then another seven for the trial," Mr De Bruin recalls. "And that was with a plane that crashed in a peaceful place. With MH17 the case is more complicated."

[My own assessment of the jurisdictional questions that arise out of MH17 and how they compare with those that arose out of Pan Am 103 can be read here.]

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Recruitment of the FBI's Lockerbie "golden informant"

[What follows is taken from an article headed Richard Marquise and his "Golden Informant" Majid Giaka - An Extract from "Enemies - A History of the FBI" by Tim Weiner posted yesterday on baz’s blog The Masonic Verses:]

Tim Weiner's recent book Enemies - A History of the FBI is a fascinating story of the creation of the FBI within the US Justice Department following American entry into the Great War, not for the purpose of criminal investigation but to counter the threat of radicals, anarchists and communists by means of dubious constitutionality. (...)

The author devotes six pages to an uncritical account of the Bureau's involvement in the Lockerbie case focusing on the role of the leader of the FBI taskforce (of 7 persons) Richard Marquise. (Tom Thurman is not mentioned.)
Marquise was recently quoted in the Dutch media in a story titled "The Lessons of Lockerbie" in relation to the shooting down of flight MH17 over the Ukraine. Marquise advocated the recruitment of a "Golden Informant" to solve the case just as he had done in the Lockerbie case (and by ignoring the actual evidence). Weiner's book gives a very interesting summary of how this "Golden Informant" Majid Giaka was recruited (page 372).
"Marquise needed to turn intelligence into evidence.  He needed a witness who would link Megrahi to the Samsonite suitcase with the Semtex.  He needed to find someone who knew that the suitcase carried the bomb from Air Malta to Pan Am 103.  He went back to the CIA. The Agency told him, belatedly, that it had once had a Libyan informant named Abdul Majid Giaka. He had gone on the CIA's payroll four months before Lockerbie. He was on it the night Pan Am 103 was bombed. But the Agency had dropped him a few months later, deeming him a fabricator milking his interrogators for money.
Marquise was dying to talk to Majid, no matter how dubious he seemed to the CIA.  In June 1991 the Agency flew him from a navy ship off the coast of Malta to give the FBI the chance to interview him in Virginia.  Justly wary of its informant, the CIA imposed one condition: don't tell anybody."  (Marquise immediately phoned Stuart Henderson.)  
"Majid was debriefed for at least two weeks during September 1991. He insisted that he knew three facts. He identified Megrahi as an intelligence officer serving as Libya's airline security chief. He said that Megrahi's subordinate in Malta had a cache of Semtex. And he said he had seen Megrahi with a large brown suitcase at the airport in Malta during the weeks before the Lockerbie bombing. Majid was without doubt an unreliable witness. But the FBI had faith that he was telling the truth on those three points. Marquise thought he had the foundation of a case that would stand up in court."
Giaka's account did stand up unchallenged before a patriotic US Grand Jury leading to the November 1991 indictment. However, it crumbled before even the Mickey Mouse Camp Zeist tribunal when in the defence team's finest hour they had admitted in evidence a large number of CIA cables regarding Giaka. What is astonishing is that Megrahi was actually convicted despite Giaka being discredited, a fact not mentioned in Mr Weiner's book.
Perhaps some of the parties to the MH17 atrocity will, (or have already) recruited their own "Golden Informant".
Marquise's wrote his own account of the Lockerbie investigation in his book Scotbom.  (Which I have never read.) Giaka of course never wrote his memoirs and has never been heard of since the close of the Camp Zeist trial.
I am afraid the only "Lesson of Lockerbie" for the families of those murdered on flight MH17 is how Governments fabricate evidence to suit their own political objectives regardless of the facts.

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Accept, apologise, punish the guilty

[An article about the MH17 tragedy published on the website of Newsweek magazine is yet another that makes an analogy to Pan Am 103 and Lockerbie. Unlike most others from American sources, it does refer to IR655 and the USS Vincennes.  The article reads in part:]

Just six months ago Putin’s international standing was at an all-time high as he presided over the Sochi Olympics and released imprisoned oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Pussy Riot group. But it began its precipitous descent with Russia’s occupation of Crimea – and now, Putin’s name and reputation have become inextricably linked to the tragedy of MH17. This is his Lockerbie moment.

“Politics is about ­control of the imaginary – and [MH17] plane has become symbolic of something deeper,” says Mark Galeotti of New York University. “It is becoming very difficult not to regard Putin’s Russia as essentially an aggressive, subversive and destabilising nation after this.”

It didn’t have to be like this. Unlike Muammar Gadaffi, whose agents ­knowingly blew up Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, killing 243 people, Putin didn’t order separatist militiamen near Donetsk to murder civilians. The evidence points to a tragic mistake by ill-trained and ill-disciplined militias to whom Russia rashly supplied deadly surface to air missiles. But the Kremlin didn’t have to own this disaster. Putin could have disowned the Donetsk rebel group responsible, agreed to cooperate with international investigators, call world leaders to share their shock and commitment to bring the guilty to justice.

Instead, he did the opposite. In the days after the tragedy the Kremlin obfuscated the facts, blamed Kiev and facilitated the Donetsk separatists’ hasty cover-up operations – from attempting to hide bodies that had tell-tale shrapnel wounds to hurriedly evacuating the BUK rocket launcher back across the border (a not-so-secret operation snapped by the camera phones of local residents and Kiev’s spies). Putin himself appeared on national television – twice – vaguely blaming the whole incident on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for not making peace with the rebels, a convoluted version of a child’s “he made me do it” argument. As a result of Putin’s KGB-trained instinct to deny everything, the tragedy of MH17 is, in the eyes of much of the world, now seen as Putin’s doing. (...)

But Putin has allowed himself to become a hostage to bad stuff happening, which is just bad politics. Cover-ups rarely work ­, as the US found in the aftermath of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, for instance, or the shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf in 1988, just five months before Lockerbie, the smartest way to deal with such disasters is to accept, apologise, punish the guilty. 

[“Accept”: ‘The following day, the Pentagon held a news conference on the incident. After originally having flatly denied Iran's version of the event, saying that it had shot down an F-14 fighter and not a civilian aircraft, the State Department (after a review of the evidence) admitted the downing of Iran Air 655. It was claimed that the plane had "strayed too close to two US Navy warships that were engaged in a battle with Iranian gunboats" and, according to the spokesman, that the "proper defensive action" was taken (in part) because the "suspect aircraft was outside the prescribed commercial air corridor" (Washington Post).

‘That it "strayed" from its normal, scheduled flight path is factually incorrect. And so was the claim that it was heading right for the ship and "descending" toward it — it was ascending. Another "error" was the contention that it took place in international waters (it did not, a fact only later admitted by the government). Incorrect maps were used when Congress was briefed on the incident.’ http://chinamatters.blogspot.ca/2014/07/ukraine-mh-17-and-twilight-of.html

“Apologise”: ‘The US government issued notes of regret for the loss of human lives and in 1996 paid reparations to settle a suit brought in the International Court of Justice regarding the incident, but the United States never released an apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing. George H W Bush, the vice president of the United States at the time commented on the incident during a presidential campaign function (2 Aug 1988): "I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy."’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

“Punish the guilty”: ‘Despite the mistakes made in the downing of the plane, the men of the Vincennes were awarded Combat Action Ribbons for completion of their tours in a combat zone. Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, received the Navy Commendation Medal. In 1990, The Washington Post listed Lustig's awards as one being for his entire tour from 1984 to 1988 and the other for his actions relating to the surface engagement with Iranian gunboats. In 1990, Rogers was awarded the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer ... from April 1987 to May 1989." The award was given for his service as the commanding officer of the Vincennes from April 1987 to May 1989, and the citation made no mention of the downing of Iran Air 655.’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655]