Malaysia Leader Says ‘No Proof’ Russia to Blame for MH17 Downing

(Bloomberg) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said there’s “no proof” Russia is to blame for the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine.

The international team investigating the crash leveled murder charges against three Russians and a Ukrainian that it said were responsible for shooting down the aircraft.

“I would think a politician is not stupid to act like that,” Mahathir told reporters Thursday. “I don’t think it is true at all.”

“We are very unhappy because from the very beginning it became a political issue on how to accuse Russia of the wrongdoing,” he added. “So far there is no proof. Only hearsay.”

Almost five years after 298 people died when a Russian-made surface-to-air missile detonated just feet from the Boeing 777 at cruising altitude, the MH17 Joint Investigation Team said it would prosecute Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy, and Oleg Pulatov as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.

At the press conference Wednesday, the Malaysian representative on the investigation team said his government supported the probe, including its latest conclusions. A spokeswoman for the investigation team couldn’t immediately comment on Mahathir’s remarks.

To contact the reporters on this story: Anisah Shukry in Kuala Lumpur at ashukry2@bloomberg.net;Wout Vergauwen in Amsterdam at wvergauwen@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, ;Yudith Ho at yho35@bloomberg.net, Karen Leigh

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