REUTERS
Investigators into the cause of the disaster with flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in July 2014 haven't reached the point of "formally" identifying suspects, though they have shortlisted 'persons of interest,' Dutch Chief Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said in Rotterdam on Tuesday, according to Dutch news website NU.nl.
The criminal investigation into the case is going well, he said, NLTimes wrote.
Westerbeke said that the most likely scenario was that the Malaysia Airlines airplane had been shot down by a BUK missile. But that is not the only scenario that the prosecutor is looking at. Experts are busy investigating alternative scenarios in order to substantiate or exclude them.
A joint investigation team, made up of experts from the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Ukraine, and Belgium, has already interviewed more than 100 witnesses, Westerbeke said in Rotterdam, according to The New York Times, referring to The Associated Press.
He added that the probe would likely take until at least the end of the year.
Some relatives of victims of the crash expressed anger at the slow pace of investigations into the crash, Westerbeke said.
He said he understood frustrations but defended the pace of the probe, saying its results must be "transparent, robust and reach the required evidentiary thresholds in order to stand up in a lawsuit."