The Russian ambassador to Australia has claimed that the country's federal police tampered with evidence from the MH17 plane wreckage.
Dr Alexey Pavlovsky believes integral evidence from the Malaysia Airlines flight that was shot down over the Ukraine was falsified by Australian investigators.
A total of 298 people were killed, including 38 Australians, when a BUK missile shot down the Boeing 777 from Ukrainian territory held by pro-Russia separatists in July 2014.
Dr Pavlovsky claimed that there are flaws in the investigation which was made to reach a predetermined result and blame Russia for the attack.
'The experts say that many of these pictures have been heavily tampered with and it seems that the Australian Federal Police as part of the investigation also had information to this effect but it somehow chose to withhold it from the public,' he told 9News.
Analysts from the MH17 Joint Investigation Team (JIT) included representatives from Australia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ukraine.
The JIT have charged Russia's Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov and Ukraine's Leonid Kharchenko with the tragedy, with a trial to begin on Monday.
Footage used in evidence by the JIT showed a truck with a BUK missile from the Russian armed forces travelling from Russia to the Ukraine before returning with no missile.
Russia has denied this accusation, with Dr Pavlovsky saying it is important to establish the truth for the victims families.
'I saw on the internet some copies of the documents indicating the Australian participants to the JIT at least had some signals on the pictures presented as evidence being falsified,' he said.
Dr Pavlovsky believes any evidence that is contrary to blaming Russia for shooting down the plane has been hidden by the Australian and international media.
'The investigation was based on falsified pictures and on the recordings provided by the security services of Ukraine. For me that's quite enough to smell a rat here,' Dr Pavlovsky said.
The Australian Federal Police have denied accusations of using falsified evidence.
Many questions remain unanswered more than five years after the tragedy.
Former Australian foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop told the ABC in 2018 that Russia needed to explain why a missile was taken Russia to Ukraine prior to the attack.
'The Russian Federation must answer how it is that a sophisticated weapon, a BUK missile, was transported from Russia into Eastern Ukraine and was used to bring down a civilian aircraft carrying 298 people and then was immediately taken back into Russia,' she said.
None of the accused will appear in court because both Russia and the Ukraine don't extradite citizens for criminal trials.
Because of this, any sentence imposed may not be served as the Netherlands has no authority over either country.
There is a possibility for more people to be charged over the incident, with the accused facing life in jail under Dutch law.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
