Malaysia Seeks to Find Alternative Way to Prosecute MH17 Crash Perpetrators

Malaysia has to find an alternative way to prosecute the ones responsible for the MH17 crash, Malaysian Minister of Transport Liow Tiong Lai said on Sunday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed in the conflict-torn eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board, mostly Dutch nationals.

Four days later, UN Security Council Resolution 2166 was adopted unanimously, to establish a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines.

"We have to consider a Plan B. Either we form a multi-state court or bring this matter to the International Criminal Court," Liow Tiong Lai was quoted by Malaysian Digest news portal as saying.

In July, Russia vetoed the UN resolution, submitted by Malaysia, to create an international tribunal to identify and prosecute those responsible for the tragedy, insisting that the final report by the Dutch Safety Board, due in October, must come first.

According to a preliminary report by the Dutch Safety Board, tasked with the official investigation on the MH17 crash, the Malaysia Airlines flight broke up in the air as the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.

Kiev and the West were quick to blame eastern Ukrainian militia which they claimed was supported by Russia, for the incident. The militia claimed that they had never had weapons capable of shooting down an aircraft traveling at the altitude at which MH17 was flying.