Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) arrested Ukrainian Volodymyr Tsemakh over MH17 crash, which happened in 2014, as Bellingcat reported.
“Tsemakh was previously known to have been the commander of an air defense unit in Snizhne, the town nearest to the Buk missile launch site. Tsemakh had not been publicly linked to the events surrounding the downing of MH17 before, and was also not mentioned in our recent report about the separatists connected to the downing of MH17. However, newly-surfaced footage has revealed that he was, at a minimum, an important eyewitness to these events,” the message reads.
Tsemakh was abducted on June 27, 2019 in Snizhne “by Ukrainian agents, who knocked him unconscious and smuggled him out of separatist-held territory using fake documents and by disguising him as an old paralyzed man in a wheelchair”.
Novaya Gazeta informed that his detention was easy as he was adrunk. His wife confirmed Tsemakh had problems with alcohol.
“Two days later, a court in Kyiv gave way to a criminal case against Tsemakh, the charges document stating that he was suspected of committing a criminal offense under Part 1 of Article 258-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — creating a terrorist group or a terrorist organization — a standard charge brought against separatists by the Ukrainian authorities,” it is reported.
His lawyer and daughter confirmed this. Yet, as Tsemakh was the Head of Air Defence unit in Snizhne in the summer of 2014, the main reason for the detention was linked to MH17.
