News Corp Australia has obtained a previously unknown video allegedly taken minutes after Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was downed in Ukraine exactly one year ago. The voices cited by the transcript of the full footage claim a warplane shot down the Boeing.
The four-minute clip posted by News Corp Australia is an extract from what is claimed to be a longer 17-minute video, which allegedly depicts the immediate aftermath of the MH17 Boeing crash. The clip shows rebel fighters who arrived at the scene, first looking to get things under control. Their commander is heard ordering them to clear the area of civilians and onlookers and search for the black boxes.
In the clip a man's voice is heard, which is thought to be that of a rebel commander, who receives a number of phone calls apparently from other rebel fighters at different sites where the debris fell. The man is heard saying “What? There’s another plane?” and orders the men to “establish a perimeter and keep civilians away”.
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The four-minute clip posted by the News.com.au is followed by a transcript from a longer 17-minute video, which has not been released. News Corp Australia told RT that they "stand by the transcript, it was taken from the full video, which investigators now have."
The text cites a rebel commander as saying that "the Sukhoi [fighter jet] brought down the plane and we brought down the Sukhoi."
Later on, the man is quoted as saying that "there’s two planes taken down,” while a voice in the background says, "the fighter jet brought down this one [MH17 Boeing], and our people brought down the fighter. They [the Ukrainians] decided to do it this way, to make it look like we have brought down the plane."
According to the transcript, there were also between two and "five parachute jumpers" who landed at the nearby Grabove village. These included a pilot “roaming about Rassypnoe" [a nearby village] and a commander ordering his men go and get him immediately.
One of the rebels is also wondering who and why they [the Boeing] was given permission to fly over the warzone.
The four-minute clip shows rebels searching the debris for black boxes and finding one, as well as personal IDs of the passengers, which they then filmed on the camera.
Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch chief prosecutor's office and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) comprised of investigators from the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, Ukraine and Malaysia, told RT that they have received what he believes is the full video.
“We’ve got this video last night. Some parts of the video were already [circulating] in the [web]. We will investigate if this is authentic material and whether we could use it in the criminal investigation,” Bruin said.
The investigators also have several people of interest, however there are identities are being kept confidential, he added.
“We are investigating several scenarios. First of all it’s the well-known scenario where the flight MH17 was shot down a Buk missile launched somewhere from eastern Ukraine. And the second scenario we are investigating is where a jet fighter with an air-to-air missile shot down MH17 flight,” he said adding “it’s too early to draw conclusions.”
Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop reacted upon the release of the video by saying that she could not verify its authenticity. “It is sickening to watch and, 12 months on from the downing of MH17, it is deeply concerning that this footage has emerged now," she told the Nine Network.
Bishop also said “it is certainly consistent with all that we were told, the advice that we received two months ago, that flight MH17 had been shot down by a... missile.”
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was downed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people onboard.