Kerry: evidence suggests pro-Russian rebels shot down plane

(Vatican Radio) In eastern Ukraine, western observers have confirmed that Pro-Russian separatists have piled nearly 200 bodies from the downed Malaysian passenger plane into four refrigerated boxcars in a train, despite mounting international concern that key evidence is being removed from the crash site. The United States has meanwhile presented what it calls “powerful” evidence that pro-Russian rebels shot down the plane last Thursday. 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says new evidence suggests that pro-Russian rebels shot down the plane with a Russian surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people on board.

“We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar. We also know, from voice identification, that the separatists were bragging about shooting it down afterwards. There's a stacking up of evidence here, which Russia needs to help account for.”  

Yet, complicating the investigation are reports that pro-Russian rebels are hiding the black boxes with key data of flight MH17. 

INTERCEPTED CALLS

Ukraine's Security Service has released a recording that it claims is a telephone call between two rebels. The recording features the voice of a man, allegedly rebel commander Oleksandr Khodakovsky, asking other rebels about the black boxes. 

During the call Khodakovsky apparently says “Moscow” wants to know about the black boxes – and when he is told that something that could be a flight recorder has been found, he gives the instruction to “hide” it.

Aleksandr Borodai, the leader of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, later told reporters that he has what he believes to be the black boxes. 

His forces also put the human remains of many of the nearly 300 victims in refrigerated boxcars in a train in the rebel-held town of Torez, some 15 km away from the huge crash area.  

DUTCH NATIONALS

Most of those who died were Dutch nationals. An emotional Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans asked Ukraine's government to help in bringing the victims home.   

“This tragedy has really rocked the Netherlands to its very foundation. My first priority is to bring our people home,” he told President Petro Poroshenko. “Families want to bury their loved ones.”   

Churches across Ukraine have been praying for the victims and their relatives. 

Similar church services were held across the Netherlands on Sunday. 

Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: