Ukraine rebels hand over plane black boxes

A senior separatist leader, Aleksander Borodai, has handed over black boxes from an airliner downed over eastern Ukraine to Malaysian experts in the city of Donetsk.

“Here they are, the black boxes,” Borodai told a room packed with journalists at the headquarters of his self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic as an armed rebel placed the boxes on a desk.

Both sides then signed a document, which Borodai said was a protocol to finalise the procedure.

Colonel Mohamed Sakri of the Malaysian National Security Council said the two black boxes were “in good condition”, Reuters news agency reported. 

The rebels also announced a ceasefire within a 10km radius around the crash site to allow international investigators to safely access the vast area where the Malaysia Airlines flight was downed, AFP news agency reported. 

The move came after a United Nations Security Council resolution condemned the downing of the plane and demanded that armed groups allow “safe, secure, full and unrestricted access” to the crash site.

The 15-member council unanimously adopted an Australian-drafted resolution demanding those responsible “be held to account and that all states cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability”.

“We owe it to the victims and their families to determine what happened and who was responsible,” said Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who travelled to New York to negotiate the UN resolution. Australia lost 28 citizens in the crash.

Bishop told the council that Russia “must use its influence over the separatists” to ensure access to the site.

Veto-wielding councilmember Russia voted for the resolution after some changes were made to the text, including the characterisation of the incident as the “downing” of the airliner instead of “shooting down”.

A request by Moscow for references to armed groups to be removed was not granted.

The resolution “demands that the armed groups in control of the crash site and the surrounding area refrain from any actions that may compromise the integrity of the crash site, including by refraining from destroying, moving, or disturbing wreckage, equipment, debris, personal belongings, or remains.”

A train carrying the remains of most of the victims of the downed plane will arrive in the government-controlled city of Kharkiv on Tuesday before being put on a plane to the Netherlands, after the Malaysian prime minister reached a deal with the leader of pro Russian separatists controlling the area.  

Almost 200 of the victims on the flight to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam were Dutch. An emotional Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said it was despicable that human remains were being used in a political game.

“We will not rest until all facts are known and justice is served,” Timmermans said.