Malaysia slams downing flight MH17 as crime against humanity

Malaysian officials say if a missile strike is proved to be behind the downing of its passenger plane MH17 over Ukraine, it would constitute an “outrage against human decency.”

The Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai made the remarks on Friday, a day after the Malaysian airliner crashed in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, killing 298 people onboard.

The Malaysian minister also said Ukrainian authorities would investigate the case under international conventions on plane crashes, adding that two Malaysian personnel would be sent to Kiev to assist directly in the probe.

The Malaysian Boeing 777-200 was reportedly shot down on Thursday over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, while en route from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The development comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier on Friday that the government of the territory in which the tragedy had happened bears responsibility for it, adding that the incident would not have occurred if Kiev had not resumed its military operation against the pro-Russia forces in the country’s east.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, however, has said a “terrorist attack” caused the passenger plane to crash.

Pro-Russians in eastern Ukraine have accused Kiev of shooting down the plane. The government of the Lugansk People’s Republic has said in a statement that witnesses watching the flight of the Boeing 777 passenger plane saw it being attacked by a battle plane of the Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine launched its military operations in eastern regions in mid-April in a bid to crush the pro-Russia protests there. Hundreds of people have been killed in the military campaign while tens of thousands were forces to escape to Russia.