Letter to Prime Minister Mark Rutte

Warsaw,24th July 2014

Dear Mr Prime Minister

We wish to express our deepest condolences to all the families and the relatives of the victims who perished as a result of the recent attack on the Malaysian Airlines plane MH17. Please do share our heartfelt condolences with the citizens of all the countries affected by this unprovoked and unjust tragedy, the families and the relatives of those who died.

Having suffered a similar tragedy only 4 years ago when, on 10 April 2010, a AF plane carrying 96 Polish citizens crashed in Russia, we feel that we have gained some unfortunate experience that is worth sharing with you and the families at this juncture to prevent further trauma to the families, while safeguarding evidence and ensuring that justice can be brought for those who lost their loved ones.

The most important and critical issue at this time is full and unfettered access to, and control of, the post mortem and identification process, as well as access to the crash site to secure the evidence.  Unfortunately, time is of the essence and any delay should simply be perceived as prevention of a transparent and proper process that is the basic human right of those families (and also a breach of the Chicago Convention).

Despite the overwhelming desire for the families to be reconciled with their loved ones and to bury them with dignity, we would urge you to ensure that you and all the countries affected carry out independent autopsies in your home states before burial. Forsaking this step by the Polish government (for reasons still not clear to us to this day) and relying on assurances from the Russian authorities has meant that months after the accident we were forced to commence a legal battle to exhume our loved ones, only to discover the criminal misconduct and breach of all internationally recognised standards in the limited instances where autopsies were carried out. Despite many and repeated assurances at the time, none of us can be sure that we have actually buried our loved ones, and not the relatives of other families.  Similarly, to the very distressing news regarding the victims of the MH17 flight, the bodies of our loved ones were robbed and mistreated. To our great horror, as illustrated by the exhumed cases, the remains themselves were desecrated which became evident during the secondary autopsies. We are distraught to see that history is repeating itself here and that the families with whom we feel such solidarity and sympathy are suffering through this unbearable ordeal.

Misconduct and delay on behalf of Russian authorities, on a territory we may add that was fully under Russian control, meant that for nearly two years we were unable to disprove the investigation’s fabricated conclusions of Russian authorities, such as the accusation that one of our most respected army generals was under the influence of alcohol and was exerting pressure on the pilots.  This conclusion was presented in the official Russian report which, due to the lack of recognised legal process in the case of our investigation blamed on the fact that civil aviation laws do not appear to extend to protect our loved ones, we have no legal or formal appeal process against. We would urge you to ensure that the political situation in Ukraine is not used as an excuse to not to follow the ICOA standards.

It is equally important to secure all of the photographic and crash site evidence by experts trained in such tragedies.  We have found that securing evidence by Russian authorities has resulted in irreparable distortion and destruction of the evidence, such as cutting up of the plane debris, smashing parts of the plane, leaving the plane unsecured and exposed to elements for months, and not returning the evidence to us over 4 years on.  Even the handling of the black boxes which still have not been released to us has only raised questions. Copies of the recording that we were provided with have proved to be of various lengths and the official Russian transcripts have been misleading.

Witnessing this tragedy on behalf of MH17 victims and their families we are very distressed to see history repeat itself. Unfortunately we continue to live through our ordeal to this day which is why we would like to offer our support to the families of the victims of MH17 flight. We urge the international institutions, air crash investigative bodies, ICOA, NTSB, AAIB, EASA and other internationally renowned organisations to limit their anguish and to take firm and decisive action. When a senseless tragedy like this takes place, the politics should be put aside and support and protection to those who need it offered.