Dutch Policeman Suspected of Selling Items Allegedly Related to MH17 Crash

A Dutch police officer offering the controversial items that were retrieved from the area where the Malaysia Airlines MH17 plane crashed for sale was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement, according to law enforcement.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — A Dutch police officer is suspected of offering items for sale online that were retrieved from the area where the Malaysia Airlines MH17 plane crashed in the eastern Ukrainian countryside in July 2014, local media reported Monday.

The items for sale on the Marktplaats website included the clothes a police officer was wearing in the MH17 investigation, a pouch of Malaysia Airlines tissues, as well as a piece of unknown material suggested to be related to the downed airplane, the NL Times reported, citing police.

The advertisements related to the object were removed from the website over the weekend, as the offer was deemed "offensive and unethical," a Marktplaats spokesman was quoted by the media as saying.

It has not yet been confirmed whether all the objects for sale were related to the crashed plane, according to the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper.

Some earlier media reports suggested that the police officer was fired, but the NL Times reported that he was reassigned while an investigation is underway.

The police officer offering the controversial items for sale was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement, according to law enforcement.

Flight MH17, with 298 people on board, crashed on July 17, 2014, after being shot down en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, leaving no survivors. Most of the victims were Dutch citizens, and the Dutch Safety Board headed the international investigation into the incident.