MH17: Efforts to find perpetrator continues

Efforts to find the perpetrator behind the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 continues, according to the Department of Civil Aviation.

DCA director-general Datuk Seri Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said the task was being undertaken by the Joint Investigation Team comprising investigators from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

He said the final report on the tragedy released by the Dutch Safety Board did not name any perpetrator because the report was based on Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation which only covered the technical aspects, including determining the cause of the incident.

"Annex 13 is associated with finding out what actually happened and making recommendations to avert similar incidents in the future.

"It will not accuse anyone of having been responsible because the terms of reference of Annex 13 does not cover that," he told Bernama on Tuesday night.

The Dutch Safety Board confirmed on Tuesday that Flight MH17 was shot down by a BUK surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine last year.

The aircraft was hit while cruising at 30,000 feet and crashed in a tense area of war-torn Ukraine close to the Russian border on July 17.

All 283 passengers and 15 crew on board the Boeing 777 aircraft, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, were killed.

Besides Malaysians, nationals from the Netherlands, Australia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, the Philippines, Canada and New Zealand were among the passengers and crew.