Investigators present their evidence into the crash of MH17. The subsequent investigation, which began almost immediately and continues to this day, has painstakingly, forensically researched that atrocity, using intelligence tools, phone-taps, satellite images, computer simulations, social media posts, reconstructions and test-explosions, even soil tests. They also used old-fashioned shoe-leather, interviewing hundreds of witnesses. They aim to build a case to a standard suitable for a criminal prosecution of those responsible - the "beyond reasonable doubt" test. They say they now know exactly what was fired, from where, to bring down the plane. They have identified 100 people involved in making it happen.

Their job now is to divide those people into witnesses and culprits. It is then the job of the world's governments to bring them to justice. Here is how the investigation broke it down (as so far revealed - they have more evidence not disclosed this week). The background The rear fuselage of flight MH17 at the crash site in the fields in eastern Ukraine. Credit:Kate Geraghty In eastern Ukraine during July 2014, there was heavy fighting south-east of Donetsk. Kiev was trying to establish a passageway to the Russian border, using air attacks to suppress the opposition.

Two recordings of phone taps by the Ukraine secret service - and judged genuine by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) - convey the desperation in the separatist camp and a plea for help. These recordings come from the evening of July 16 and the early hours of July 17. Russian speaker A: "Screw it, Sanych, I don't even know if my men will be able to hold there today or not. They start coming down on them with Grads, I'll be left without my reconnaissance battalion and the Spetsnaz [Russian special forces] company. "This shit is f---ed up. Oh crap." Russian speaker B: "And … "

A: "And there's nothing we can do about it … Now, Grads are something we can f---ing bear with, but if Sushkas [slang for Sukhoi jet] strike in the morning … If I can receive a Buk in the morning and send it over there, that'd be good. If not, things will go totally f---ed up. I'm going there myself at night, so … " B: "So you're here for now, right?" A: "Well I err … When you left I had a two-hour nap and then I went there, we took over the hills there and Marinovka itself. Then I left. And after that the planes - the Sushkas - came back. They were attacking from five or six kilometres, because they couldn't even hear them … " B: "Dead right. I saw them flying in that direction all night long and … " A: "That's it … They came down on them real hard."

B: "Real hard." A: "Yes yes yes yes." B: "Well look here Nikolayevich, if you need … we'll send it … over to your area." The second recording confirms that the promise was kept. "And were should we unload this Nikolayevich … the one I brought with me?

"Buk? … Yes, yes I got it." [Fairfax's italics] Other possibilities JIT's investigators had dozens of containers with thousands of wreckage parts from MH17, recovered from the fields of Ukraine and examined in detail. Of those, 1448 were considered useful evidence and entered into a database. Despite a Buk being the obvious conclusion, other theories were carefully considered, Fred Westerbeke, the Netherlands' chief prosecutor, said.

"Two scenarios could be ruled out after a while," he said. "This included the possibility of an accident as a result of technical or human failure, and the possibility of an attack within the aircraft, for example by terrorists." Then there was the possibility MH17 was brought down by another plane - the "air-to-air scenario" (which was pressed hard by Russia's ministry of defence in previous years, although they walked it back this month). "We have been able to exclude the air-to-air scenario," Westerbeke said. "This plane would have been visible in radar images." Russia and Ukraine provided radar data and, recently, new data emerged from a Ukraine mobile radar unit which "completed the picture". "The material now available to us is amply sufficient to reach conclusions in the criminal investigation," Westerbeke said.

Air traffic controllers were interviewed, and audio files of their communications examined. "No other aircraft were flying in the vicinity of flight MH17, so no other aircraft could have shot it down." The weapon "Flight MH17 was shot down on 17 July 2014 by a 9M38 series missile launched by a Buk trailer. This Buk trailer was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and after launch was subsequently returned to the Russian Federation territory."

This is the broad conclusion. First: the nature of the missile. The warhead in a Buk missile has a charge surrounded by metal "particles", heavy slugs that tear through the target. On launch, the missile burns the ground behind it and leaves a smoke contrail Debris from the plane and possible parts of the weapon were collected from the fields of Ukraine and examined in the Netherlands. The bodies of the victims were also examined for missile fragments. The team also collected "reference material" - parts of similar missiles, which they could compare with the recovered fragments. They dismantled several types of 9M38s, and placed them side-by-side with the referents. They matched.

The crash site wasn't a closed crime scene, so the team had to show a causal link with the parts and the shooting down - to show the parts weren't already there, or had been added later. Such evidence was found: - Several metal particles of the kind found in a Buk warhead were found in the bodies of the cockpit crew. - One particle showed traces of glass, which matched the glass used in Boeing 777 cockpit windows. This showed the particle penetrated from the outside. - A ball of twisted metal in the groove of a cockpit missile precisely matched a 9M38 missile part in shape, dimensions and milling traces. Its distortion showed it had been shot into the window with great force.

The team also performed "arena tests", detonating a Buk warhead and missile in a test environment surrounded by aluminium panels and high-speed cameras. The velocity of fragments and the damage patterns in the test matched forensic traces from the crash site. The route to launch A Buk system, designed to destroy enemy aircraft at medium range, is 9m long, 3.5m high and runs on caterpillar tracks. The control system has room for four - a commander, a driver and two operators. The commander checks radar for a target, and a few minutes later the missile can be launched.

"The investigation could track down a large part of the route of the Buk trailer (carrying the system)," said Wilbert Paulissen, head of crime investigation for the Netherlands national police. They used social media. They also interviewed several witnesses who said they saw the Buk drive by. It was photographed and recorded several times. They also tracked the mobile phone towers 'pinged' by the phones of the officers escorting the convoy. Telephone traffic between those officers and their commanders was recorded by Ukraine - on several occasions they talked about where they are and the route to be followed: A: "Hello, where are you now? Have you brought one…?

B: "Hello Nikolayevich? Now I'm… A: "Or two? Tell me. B: "No one, one. Because they had an unclear situation there… Unloaded and brought it here in self-propelled mode. A: "Did it come in self-propelled mode or on a lowbed semitrailer? B: "It crossed, crossed the line.

A: "Ah and now you brought it on a lowbed semitrailer yes? B: "Yes yes yes. A: "So look… I'll say now where it should go. It will go together with the Vostok tanks. Is it clear? Yes? Hello? B: "Aha, hello I got it, I got it. A: "Now, keep in touch."

Now follows a series of photographs and videos found on social media "and otherwise". All this data shows the Buk was brought into Ukraine from the Russian Federation, near the Ukraine town of Sukhodilsk. It joined a convoy of Ukraine separatists - armed men in uniform who escorted it to the final launch site. At 8am a witness saw it in Yenakiieve. It was seen in Donetsk by "many witnesses", in social media and in a video from which Paris Match reporters published a well-known still. At 11am the convoy continued towards Snizhne. More videos capture it along the way. Images "clearly" showing the Buk were found by the JIT, displayed this week with the background cut out to protect the source. In Snizhne the Buk was loaded off the truck near a supermarket - passing by an apartment building. One final video shows it en route to its final destination.

Launch site The Russian Ministry of Defence claimed the missile was fired from the city of Zaroschenke, which it said was controlled by Ukraine. The JIT found evidence that not only was this not the launch location, the area was controlled by pro-Russian fighters anyway. They "illustrated" this through a phone conversation intercepted by Ukraine in June 2015, in which one participant claims to know both these facts. "I'm giving you 100 per cent it has not been downed from over there," said one.

The JIT did not identify the callers, except as "pro-Russian fighters". However it said it "has other evidence in support of these conclusions" - including the trail from the previous section. This evidence also includes soil samples from possible launch sites, taken in 2015, mobile phone network measurements (tracing the phone of a person or persons in the Buk convoy), and visual material such as photos and videos taken by locals. They were also given classified intelligence by the US, which was not made public but which matched their conclusions. The conclusion: the launch site is an agricultural field near Pervomaiskiy, about 500 by 600 metres, surrounded on three sides by trees. The team believes this "without any doubt".

It is 21 kilometres south-east of the spot where MH17 crashed. That territory was controlled by pro-Russian fighters. "Many witnesses" saw the launch. They heard a loud noise, a violent explosion, a high whistling sound. They saw a plume of smoke, a missile, an airplane crashing. Several witnesses saw the contrail "white, thick and long". At least two photographs show the contrail. They have been examined and no evidence of manipulation was found. The photos were cross-referenced for direction of view, and matched to eyewitness reports.

"The spot where these visibility lines come together" is close to that farmland. Intercepted phone conversations also concur: "It turns out to be the last checkpoint leaving Snizhne before Stepanivka … to the left," says a man identified as "Oleg". "You have to go rightwards in Stepaninka and across the field to this f---ing what's it … this f---ing Snizhne? … So go to Snizhne. I'll give you further directions there." "Got it, OK." This call matches a cell tower near the launch site.

Several journalists went to the launch site soon after the crash - they saw scorched earth, 30 by 30 metres. Locals told them the field was on fire (investigators believe from the flame of the missile launch) on July 17, 2014. They ploughed it, to end the fire risk. European Space Agency satellite images support the theory. Before MH17 was shot down, the field was uniform. Some days after, part of it is charred and ploughed and it shows signs of caterpillar tracks. Aftermath A portion of the MH17 wing lies in the field as smoke rises behind the tree line. Credit:kate geraghty

There are hardly any images of the route along which the system was removed - it took place in the evening and at night after the crash. But phone cell tower data, and "the statement of a separatist" involved in the removal of the Buk, show it heading back onto its truck in Snizhne and towards the Russian border via Luhansk. A video in Luhansk spots the Buk - with only three missiles on board. It then moved on to the border. More phone intercepts on the morning of July 18 "demonstrate the Buk was already back in the Russian federation". A: "They brought the vehicle up to the crossroad, left it there, the lads went on themselves. So the vehicle has left in the correct direction and arrived successfully."

B: "I see." A "Later [separatist leader] Strelkov began to phone up … " B: "And he turned off his f---ing telephone. F---ing shit, er, and we don't know at all where the vehicle is?" A: "The vehicle is in Russia." B: "F---ing shit, er, yesterday night I told that we didn't know ... Where is the vehicle now?"

A: "The vehicle is in Russia for a long time! He had handed it over at once, f---ing shit, to those people who were meeting … " The perpetrators "Important progress" has been made in determining who is responsible, who "delivered, transported, secured, launched and removed" the Buk, Westerbeke said. "There are 100 persons who in one way or another can be linked to the crash of flight MH17 or the transport of the Buk." Their identity has been established. They got hold of the Buk and organised transport to the Buk site, or facilitated or supported, including the escorts.

"These persons are not automatically suspects." The JIT need a clearer idea of the chain of command. "Did the crew take their own decision or were they operating on instructions from above?" It will be up to a court to render final judgement. The missing pieces

Some things the JIT know but will not say, some things they do not know. They did not say where the Buk went once it went back to Russia, but it is likely they have some information on that. Independent investigators have already found clues. They will not confirm any evidence of the involvement of Russian authorities or even Russian people. But they believe "we are likely to have success" in identifying those responsible, they say. Loading