MH17 crash: Ukraine accuses rebels of destroying evidence

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The BBC's Richard Galpin describes "horrific scenes in beautiful fields" where MH17 came down

MH17 crash

Ukraine has accused pro-Russian militiamen at the site of the Malaysia Airlines crash of trying to destroy evidence of an "international crime".

For a second day, OSCE monitors at the scene have had their movements restricted by militiamen.
Reports that bodies have been moved prompted anger from the Netherlands. Most of passengers were Dutch.
The jet was reportedly hit by a missile over a rebel-held area in east Ukraine on Thursday. All 298 people died.
Both Ukraine and the rebels have accused each other of shooting it down.
The Boeing 777 flight MH17 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It fell between Krasni Luch in Luhansk region and Shakhtarsk in the neighbouring region of Donetsk.
The passenger list released by Malaysia Airlines shows the plane was carrying 192 Dutch nationals (including one with dual US citizenship), 44 Malaysians (including 15 crew), 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians and 10 Britons (including one with dual South African citizenship), four Germans, four Belgians, three from the Philippines, and one each from Canada and New Zealand.
Pressure on Russia In a statement, the Ukrainian government complained that pro-Russian rebels had removed 38 bodies from the site and taken them to a morgue in the rebel-held city of Donetsk.
The BBC's Richard Galpin, who is at the crash site, says he saw bodies being removed by emergency workers, but it was not clear where they were being taken, nor whether the workers were loyal to the rebels or the government in Kiev.

The UN Security Council has called for a full and independent international investigation into the crash

The tragedy has sent shocked the world community

OSCE monitors say pro-Russian gunmen again blocked their access to the wreckage

Analysis: Bridget Kendall, BBC News, Moscow Both Britain and the US are now publicly pointing the finger at rebels in eastern Ukraine and maybe Russia as well.
Both say they think the Malaysian airliner was probably shot down by a missile fired from rebel-held territory - and perhaps with Russian help.
But turn on Russian TV and you enter a parallel universe, where Kiev, not Moscow, is the likely culprit: speculation that Ukrainian jets may have tailed the airliner before it crashed; colourful theories that maybe Ukrainian forces were really trying to target Putin's Presidential jet and got the wrong plane.
The question is which version is shaping President Putin's thinking. And whose opinion will he bear in mind as he decides how to handle this crisis.

Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans, who is visiting Ukraine, said he had been "shocked" by the reported removals.
"As soon as we receive proof, we will not rest until those guilty are put to trial - not only those who pulled the trigger, but also those who made it possible," he said.
The Ukrainian government also said the rebels were trying to transport the plane's wreckage to Russia.
The world community, Ukraine added, must put pressure on Russia to pull back its "terrorists" and allow Ukrainian and international experts to carry out their inquiry.

Access to the crash site is being restricted by armed men

Speaking in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong-Lai said it would be "inhumane" if Malaysian experts would not be given access to the crash site.
He also expressed concern that the site was not properly sealed and could be tampered with.
The monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is now at the crash site.
OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said access had improved from Friday and that the monitors were seeing parts of the field they had not seen before.
However he added that their movement were still being restricted by the rebels. "We are unarmed civilians, we are not in the position to argue heavily with people with heavy arms," he said.
'Act of terrorism' On Saturday the Russian foreign ministry urged both sides in the Ukrainian conflict "to do everything possible to give international experts access to the aircraft crash".
Earlier, the Russian defence ministry accused the West of waging an information war against Moscow. It challenged Ukraine to produce details of what its anti-aircraft systems were doing at the time of the crash.
Confusion remains as to whether the plane's flight recorders - the so-called black boxes - have been found.
After initial claims that they had been located, and one sent to Russia, a Donetsk separatist leader, Aleksander Borodai said they had been not yet been discovered.
Ukraine's government called Thursday's disaster an "act of terrorism" and released what they say are intercepted phone conversations that proved the plane was shot down by separatists.
Ukrainian officials also said they had evidence Russia military personnel operated a sophisticated Buk missile system that is thought to have been used to shoot down the plane.
The pro-Russian separatists claim a Ukrainian air force jet brought down the airliner.