KIEV: AFTER handing over flight MH17’s two black boxes early yesterday morning, pro-Russian separatists later released almost all the victims’ remains.
In Kharkiv, some 300km from Grabovo, where the aircraft went down, the handling of the remains were done by members of an international team, including Malaysian forensics experts and Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (Smart).
There are 36 members of the Malaysian team, but only seven from the police forensics unit were allowed into the train station there to handle the bodies.
Members of the media who had been waiting for the arrival of the refrigerated train carrying the remains from Torez were not allowed into the station.
Sources said this was for safety reasons as the train had been accompanied by armed separatists, wearing balaclavas to hide their faces.
The bodies were later transported to a nearby Ukrainian military base.
“At the base, initial forensics evaluations will be conducted by experts from the Netherlands and our own police forensics unit.
“Following this, the remains will be put on board C-130 Hercules aircraft to be flown to Amsterdam where more detailed forensics work can be conducted.
“This includes post-mortem examinations and disaster victim identification work. Once the individual bodies have been identified, only then can we start repatriating the remains,” said a source.
The police forensics team will accompany the bodies while the Smart team members will make the five-hour journey by road back to Kiev to rejoin the rest of the Malaysian team before flying to Amsterdam.
It was learnt that some of the bodies, which will be flown to Amsterdam in batches, would be transported as early as today although officials said the earliest was Friday.
The recovery of the bodies, though numbering only 280 or so, was a priority for the 131-strong Malaysia special investigation team.
Other priorities were the recovery of the aircraft’s black boxes and access to the crash site for investigation purposes, both of which had been achieved, though the latter was on a limited scale.
The black boxes, or flight data recorders, were handed over by the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic prime minister Alexander Borodai to Malaysian officials, led by a senior National Security Council member in Donetsk early yesterday.
The black boxes were said to
be in good condition and sources believe the data held within was usable.
Meanwhile, three aviation experts — Malaysia Airlines director of engineering Azahari Dahlan and Department of Civil Aviation senior assistant directors Captain Philip Joseph Selvaraju and Mohd Naemy Fahimy Mustapa — combed the crash site.
They were joined by three Dutch investigators and another from the International Civil Aviation Organisation in searching for evidence.
The seven were allowed into the area by separatists after successful negotiations between the latter and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
The release of the remains was also due to the negotiations.
The separatists and Russia had come under tremendous international pressure to release the
remains, return flight data recorders and allow access to the crash site.
Meanwhile, special investigation team chef de mission Khairil Hilmi Mokhtar said he believed the remains of all Malaysians could be brought back home soon.
“Insyallah, the first of the bodies can be brought back by Friday.”
However, sources said this would depend on the condition of
the bodies and process of identifying the remains.
“Whatever it is, we will work round the clock to make good on the prime minister’s instructions to bring our Malaysians home by Hari Raya.”