The Malay Mail Online
JULY 29, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, July 29 — After over 12 days of exposure to looters, amateur searchers, and now debris from nearby battles, experts on the ground believe that evidence from MH17’s crash site in eastern Ukraine may be too contaminated to be of much use to investigators.

According to CNN, one frustrated official labelled the site “one of the biggest open crime scenes in the world” after a team of Dutch and Australian investigators were forced to turn back yesterday due to nearby clashes between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists.

The 45-member team, which was accompanied by officials from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), were left frustrated by the fighting which, according to reports from wire agencies, may have destroyed parts of the site where the aircraft’s remains still lie.

AFP reported Vladimir Antyufeev, the self-styled deputy chief of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” as saying that the Ukrainian army has now “taken over part of the crash site”.

The situation on the ground now “is very complicated, it is not a secret”, the rebel leader added, AFP added.

OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw told CNN that on-site experts are growing “sick and tired” of being delayed. Read the rest of this entry »