KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Hussein Omar Khan, who was the police's Disaster Victim Identification commander for the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 tragedy and member of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), said the decision to prosecute the three Ukrainian separatist suspects was the best outcome the team could achieve given the circumstances of the investigation.
However, he believed that a structured agency, one capable of making a high-level decision and command, was involved in the downing of MH17.
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"Those who really understand the situation and political environment in that area — Russia, Ukraine and European Union — may understand what's happening. Everybody knows it's not a one- or two-person work.
"The least that could be done by the JIT was to gather evidence from the site, draw a conclusion, narrow it down to who did it, how they did it, what happened and who was responsible.
"The other part behind it is not as easy to prove. If you want to say something, you need solid evidence because it involves diplomacy with other countries, leaders and a bigger political perspective," said Hussein, who is now Selangor police chief.
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However, the million-dollar question remains: why did the separatists down a commercial flight?
"With the evidence gathered and the information we have, we believe that the separatists did it because they were the ones at war with the Ukrainian army.
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"But the question is why did they have to target a civil aircraft? That is still a question mark."
Earlier this year, the JIT halted its probe into the downing of MH17 without further prosecutions as it lacked evidence to take more cases to trial.