File picture shows armed pro-Russian separatists standing guard at a crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, near the village of Hrabove, Donetsk region July 20, 2014. — Reuters pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 15 — Those who shot down flight MH17 will only be identified by the end of 2017 or early 2018, Transport Minister Dtuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai told the Dewan Rakyat today.

In his ministerial winding up speech, Liow said that to date, “hundreds” have been identified as suspects behind the fatal shooting, all of whom belong to a Ukrainian separatist group.

“Probe by Joint Investigation Team (JIT) Ukraine, Belgium and Malaysia is still ongoing, by next year, we have been asked to extend investigation, extended till end of next year or early 2018 to end the criminal investigation.

“The report has been presented on October 1 is just a preliminary report. Although it has been identified who shot MH17, but there are a hundreds of them, they have to call all of them for questioning,” he explained.

“JIT suspects separatist group, JIT is continuing its investigation. When it has identified those responsible, we will use our power, JIT, using international court in Netherlands to prosecute the culprits.

“We have to go further, it depends on how far we can go from the probe whether to prosecute individuals or a group,” Liow said to a question from DAP’s Rasah MP Teo Kok Seong who had asked how many suspects have been identified to date.

JIT had last month released an interim report in the Netherlands on the criminal aspect of the downing of flight MH17, which was shot down in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people onboard, including 44 Malaysians.

National news agency Bernama reported that the report found that the Boeing 777 was shot down by a BUK 9M38 series surface-to-air missile, brought in from Russia, launched from the territory controlled by Russian-backed separatist militia and taken back to Russia.

The JIT said that the next move of the investigation focuses on the perpetrators and so far it has identified approximately 100 people who can be linked to the downing of MH17 or the transport of the BUK-TELAR.

They also agreed to extend the JIT agreement until January 1, 2018.