Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash: Britain says likely that separatists shot down Malaysia airliner

A picture taken on July 18, 2014 shows the wreckages of the Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 298 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur a day after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine. -- PHOTO: AFP
A picture taken on July 18, 2014 shows the wreckages of the Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 298 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur a day after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine. -- PHOTO: AFP

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Friday that it was increasingly likely that separatists in eastern Ukraine had shot down a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 298 aboard.

A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said the evidence suggested that separatists had shot down the airliner with a surface-to-air missile fired from Torez, in an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

"We assess that, without compelling information to the contrary, it is increasingly likely that MH17 was shot down by a separatist missile," the spokesman said in a statement.

Ten British nationals on the plane were killed, he added.

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