192 bodies taken from crash site

U.S. alleges tampering of scene by rebels in eastern Ukraine

A woman looks at a refrigerated train loaded with the bodies of victims, in Torez, eastern Ukraine, 15 kilometers (9 miles) from  the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Sunday, July 20, 2014. Armed rebels forced emergency workers to hand over all 196 bodies recovered from the Malaysia Airlines crash site and had them loaded Sunday onto refrigerated train cars bound for a rebel-held city, Ukrainian officials and monitors said. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A woman looks at a refrigerated train loaded with the bodies of victims, in Torez, eastern Ukraine, 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Sunday, July 20, 2014. Armed rebels forced emergency workers to hand over all 196 bodies recovered from the Malaysia Airlines crash site and had them loaded Sunday onto refrigerated train cars bound for a rebel-held city, Ukrainian officials and monitors said. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

TOREZ, Ukraine -- Pro-Russia rebels piled nearly 200 bodies from the downed Malaysian jetliner into four refrigerated boxcars Sunday in eastern Ukraine, and cranes at the crash scene moved big chunks of the Boeing 777, drawing condemnation from Western leaders who said the rebels were tampering with the site.

The United States, meanwhile, presented what it called "powerful" evidence that the rebels, with Russian training, shot down the plane with a Russian surface-to-air missile. Although other governments have stopped short of accusing Russia of causing the crash, the U.S. has pointed blame at Moscow for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that killed all 298 people aboard.

"Russia is supporting these separatists. Russia is arming these separatists. Russia is training these separatists," Secretary of State John Kerry said on CNN's State of the Union.

Asked whether he could speak of Russian "culpability," Kerry said investigators would have to make such a determination. He stressed, however, that there had been an infusion of Russian arms to the rebels that included heavy weapons.

"There was a convoy several weeks ago, about 150 vehicles with armored personnel carriers, multiple rocket launchers, tanks, artillery, all of which crossed over from Russia into the eastern part of Ukraine and was turned over to the separatists," he said.

Leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Australia spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone late Sunday, urging him to use his influence on the separatists to ensure the victims could be repatriated and that international investigators could have full access to collect evidence. They said European foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on Tuesday to consider further sanctions against Russia.

Russian officials have blamed Ukraine's government for creating the situation in which the plane was downed but has yet to directly address the allegations that the separatists were responsible or were operating with technical assistance from Moscow.

The 42-square-mile crash site, spread out on farmland and villages, looked dramatically different Sunday, a day after armed rebels had stood guard while dozens of bodies lay in the summer heat. The rebels were gone, and 192 bodies were loaded into the refrigerated train cars in the rebel-held town of Torez, 9 miles away.

Emergency workers, whom the rebels have allowed to operate under their supervision, were searching the sprawling fields. Cranes moved pieces of the plane around, apparently to look for more bodies underneath.

By Sunday night, Ukraine's emergency services agency said the total number of bodies found was 251, along with dozens of body parts.

But emergency responders were forced to turn bodies over to the separatists, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, said at a briefing in Kiev on Sunday.

Kerry expressed anger at the "grotesque" behavior of the rebels at the crash scene.

"Drunken separatists are stacking bodies into the back of trucks, removing materials from the site," he said on ABC's This Week. "On Friday, we had 75 minutes of access to the site; on Saturday, three hours of access. This is an insult to everybody."

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose country lost 192 citizens on the plane, said at a news conference that repatriating the bodies was his No. 1 priority.

He said all efforts were aimed at getting the train with the bodies to "territory controlled by Ukraine," adding that a Dutch military plane was being sent to Kharkiv to set up a coordination center.

Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said reports from the group's investigators in Ukraine suggest some bodies were incinerated without a trace.

"We're looking at the field where the engines have come down. This was the area which was exposed to the most intense heat. We do not see any bodies here. It appears that some have been vaporized," he said from the crash site.

Rebel leader Alexander Borodai denied the rebels were trying to tamper with evidence, saying the bodies would be turned over to a team of Malaysian experts he was expecting.

"The bodies will go nowhere until experts arrive," Borodai said in the rebel-held city of Donetsk.

Lyubov Kudryavets, a worker at the Torez morgue, said that on the evening the plane went down, a resident arrived with the bloodied body of a child, about 7 or 8 years old. On Saturday, militiamen arrived to take the body away, she said.

"They began to question me: 'Where are the fragments of rocket? Where are the fragments from the plane?'" Kudryavets said. "But I didn't have any wreckage. ... I swear."

A group of investigators that included Malaysian officials was in Kiev but said it wouldn't go into rebel-held areas until it gets better assurances about security. The Ukrainian government, which has responsibility for the investigation, has also asked for help from the International Civil Aviation Organization -- a United Nations body -- and Eurocontrol, a European air traffic safety organization.

Borodai insisted the rebels have not interfered with the investigation and said he would turn over the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, or "black boxes," as well.

Experts and government authorities have said they don't know the location of the black boxes. Although Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroisman said he was aware of reports attributed to Borodai, the government had no official information on the black boxes' whereabouts.

Lysenko said heavy fighting between rebels and government forces continued through Saturday night, with eight soldiers killed and 50 wounded -- a stark reminder that the crash site is in what remains an active combat zone.

Lysenko said Russia was continuing to supply tanks, weapons and other heavy equipment to rebels in the east, and he angrily dismissed a reported demand by some rebel leaders that a cease-fire be imposed before full access to the scene is granted.

"If the terrorists wanted to get experts into the area for special investigations, they would have done this immediately after the arrival of such experts," Lysenko said. "But the experts arrived, and still there was no cease-fire on the part of terrorists. So their statements on the conditions that they put forward have no grounds, whatsoever."

Experts said that even if investigators are granted access now, it might be too late.

"Even without any deliberate attempt at a cover-up, the crash site is already compromised in forensic terms," said Keir Giles, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank. "A reconstruction of the aircraft fuselage and wings would give a picture on how the missile struck and what kind it was. If any aircraft parts have already been removed ... this compromises the objectivity of the investigation."

Julie Bishop, Australia's foreign minister, said a vote could take place as early as today in the U.N. Security Council on a resolution demanding international access to the crash site and that she expects all 15 council members to fully support the proposal.

The resolution demands that armed groups that control the crash site do not disturb debris, belongings or victims' remains and cease military activities in the area. It also demands that "those responsible for this incident be held to account and that all states cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability."

Information for this article was contributed by Yuras Karmanau, Peter Leonard, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Nicholas Garriga, Lucian Kim, Michael Corder, Danica Kirka, Lolita C. Baldor, Rod McGuirk and Edith M. Lederer of The Associated Press; by Michael R. Gordon, Brian Knowlton, David M. Herszenhorn and Sabrina Tavernise of The New York Times; and by James M. Gomez, Daryna Krasnolutska and Andrea Rothman of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 07/21/2014

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