There are strong "strong indications" that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin supplied the missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, the Joint Investigation Team said in a report published on Feb. 8.
The investigators also said they had suspended the probe into the MH17 crash because there was not enough evidence to prosecute more suspects, AFP reported.
“The investigation has now reached its limit, all leads have now been exhausted, the investigation is therefore being suspended,” Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer told a news conference in the Hague.
Russian officials said in intercepted phone calls in 2014 that it is up to Putin to provide military aid to Russian proxies in Ukraine, the investigators said.
There is information indicating that Russian proxies' request for military aid was submitted to Putin, and he approved it, according to the investigators.
On Nov. 17, the Hague District Court found Russian combatants Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinsky and Ukrainian proxy Leonid Kharchenko guilty of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
All three were part of a Russian-controlled proxy group and used a Buk surface-to-air missile system provided by Russia to down the plane.
The fourth suspect, Russian citizen Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted.
Girkin, Dubinsky, and Kharchenko were sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to pay 16 million euros in compensation to the victims' relatives. The suspects were tried in absentia.
Russia has always denied involvement.
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