A trial of four men allegedly implicated in the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17 is underway amid accusations of possible hacking and disinformation by Russia.
Prosecutors in the Netherlands made a startling claim that Russia had potentially hacked the Dutch-led multinational Joint Investigation Team (JIT) into the July, 2014 shooting down of the Boeing 777 with 298 people on board.
The JIT includes representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, Ukraine and the Netherlands.
The tragedy occurred soon after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 as the Boeing 777 crossed Ukrainian airspace. Many of the victims on the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were Dutch but there were also 38 Australians.
Investigations have shown a Russian-made BUK missile brought down the plane and some remarkable detective work by the JIT traced the BUK-TELAR launch platform back to the 53rd Anti Aircraft Missile brigade based in Kursk in the Russian Federation.
READ: Social media helps MH17 investigators identify Russian army unit.
Phone intercepts have also suggested leaders of the armed group Donetsk People’s Republic were in contact with senior Russian officials about military support.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service alleges the four men cooperated to obtain and deploy the BUK TELAR that launched the missile at MH17 at the firing location with the aim of shooting down an aircraft.
Under Dutch law, that means they can be held jointly accountable for downing flight MH17 even if that was not their intention.
The three Russians are former Russian federal security service (FSB) colonel Igor Girkin and two ex-members of the Russian military intelligence service (GRU), Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov.
The fourth man is former Ukrainian rebel commander Leonid Kharchenko. None of the men are appearing at the trial although one of the Russians has legal representation.
Russia has denied any involvement, describing the trial as political and labeling allegations as propaganda.
It claims the JIT ignored evidence it has provided and has been pushing alternative theories, including that the 777 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet.
Prosecutors in the trial raised the possibility that Russia had hacked the JIT’s investigation as part of a misinformation campaign aimed at sowing confusion.
They said Russia had used leaked Australian Federal Police information that looked at the metadata on a photograph of the missile launcher as part of the campaign.
“Only the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia had access to all the documents,” prosecutor Dedy Woei- A-Tsoi said.
“So far none of these four Joint Investigation Team states have been able to identify any leaks.”
Australia’s ABC reported that AFP Detective Superintendent David Nelson warned outside the court that there would be more mistruths coming from Russia.
“They made the clear point disinformation has occurred over the last five and a half years and is going to occur no doubt in the future as this trial continues,” it quoted him as saying.
“It’s not helpful for the next of kin. I don’t think it helps their grieving and ability to follow the trial and know what the facts are.”
Russian Foreign Minister spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the BBC that policy and politics were dominating the case.
“We are actually trying … and we’re trying very hard to cooperate with all the countries which are involved in this case,” she said, adding that for many years Russia was refused “fair co-operation”.
“We tried, and we did it from our side, to present all materials on this issue which Russia had. And unfortunately, all our efforts were just disregarded.”
