Malaysian PM declares ‘no evidence’ Russia shot down MH17
In a jaw dropping speech, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has declared he doesn’t believe Russia shot down MH17.
“The Russian Federation must be held to account for its conduct in the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which resulted in the tragic deaths of 298 passengers and crew, including 38 people who called Australia home.”
But in a bombshell speech to the Japanese Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) on Thursday, Dr Mahathir was having none of it, accusing those who blamed Russia of scapegoating the nation for “political” reasons.
Dr Mahathir also claimed there was a sinister reason behind the decision to exclude Malaysian investigators from the black box examination.
“We may not have the expertise but we can buy the expertise. For some reason, Malaysia was not allowed to check the black box to see what happened,” he told the JFCC.
“We don’t know why we are excluded from the examination but from the very beginning, we see too much politics in it and the idea was to find out how this happened but seems to be concentrated on trying to pin it to the Russians.
“This is not a neutral kind of examination.”
Dr Mahathir said his government agreed the plane was brought down by a Russian missile but could not be certain the missile was launched by Russia.
“They are accusing Russia but where is the evidence? We know the missile that brought down the plane is a Russian type missile, but it could also be made in Ukraine,”
