Personal items used to identify MH17 victims

Personal items such lipsticks and clothing are among the key elements used to facilitate and expedite the identification of victims of the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 crash.

Amidon Midon Anan, a local forensic expert who had served the Royal Malaysian Police for almost 25 years, said if such items had been mishandled or contaminated, the identification process could take longer, three weeks or more.

"In the case of MH17, I personally think the identification process will take a long time as the bodies were not intact from the air crash.

"Investigators are looking at the original clothing on the bodies even though the colours have faded, and other personal items such watches, tattoos, gold teeth, rings and so on," he told Bernama.

Flight MH17 was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it went down in Donetsk, east Ukraine near the Russian border on July 17.

The Boeing 777-200 airliner with 298 passengers and crew was believed to have been shot down even though no parties have come forward to claim responsibility.

Amidon, who is now a visiting lecturer at the MARA University of Technology (UiTM) and the National University of Malaysia (UKM), said as soon as the process of disaster victim identification was completed, investigators would proceed to the next phase of filling the DNA for confirmation.

"Here, a blood sample of the nearest family member will be taken to match that of the victim, a process which will take less than a week. Nonetheless, in the case of MH17, it may take more time as there were many bodies and because of the condition of the bodies," he said.

Amidon, who had handled various major cases including the Highland Towers collapse in 1993, said the corpses buried in the condominium incident were intact and identification did not have to take a long time as compared to the MH17 tragedy.

"In the Highland Towers case, there were no explosions compared to MH17 tragedy which needed meticulous gathering of scattered remains for identification.

Amidon said the MH17 tragedy could become a benchmark and a new dimension in global air crisis management and could bring the local forensic investigation to a higher level.

It was reported yesterday, the International Investigation Team had identified several bodies of Malaysian victims and further verifications were needed in two weeks.

The media had earlier reported the process would take longer as the team was also collecting criminal investigation evidence of remains besides helping to identify the bodies.

The evidence is crucial as the aircraft was allegedly shot down.