MH17 anniversary: Meet the man suing Vladimir Putin, who now fears for his life

[uhnope]

Source: Telegraph UK

When aviation lawyer Jerry Skinner stopped by his suburban Cincinnati office last Christmas, he found the door ajar and the interior trashed. The files for his latest lawsuit, on behalf of victims of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crash, were missing. “They didn’t take anything else but they turned the rest of the office inside out,” he remembered. “The police couldn’t say who did it - whoever came into the office was careful.”

Thirty days earlier, the white-bearded, friendly-faced lawyer had issued a threat. Weighing up all the available photographic, video and witness evidence, he decided that the missile that blew the passenger jet apart mid-air, killing all 298 people on board, must have been a Russian one. And that it had been fired from rebel-held eastern Ukraine by soldiers ultimately under the command of President Vladimir Putin.

“I wrote to the embassy of the Russian Federation and to Vladimir Putin that I intended to bring an action against them - unless they wanted to sit down and talk - and I wanted to hear from them within 30 days,” he said. “Thirty days passed and I got robbed.” Mr Skinner suspected he was being targeted by Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR. His computer was repeatedly hacked. Threatening voicemails accumulated on his answerphone.

So three days after the burglary, he quickly and quietly packed his remaining files and moved office in the dead of night. He changed his phone number and hid from public view as he built a case for his clients - 33 relatives of 16 Australian and Malaysian passengers who died after the plane crashed from 33,000 feet onto the black earth of Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas region. Only now, with his lawsuit lodged last month at the European Court of Human Rights and hearings likely to begin later this year, has he emerged to publicise the families’ claim and call for more relatives to join the case. He hopes that public pressure, combined with a report on the findings of an international criminal investigation into the MH17 tragedy due in the autumn, might encourage the Kremlin to come clean.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/17/mh17-anniversary-meet-the-man-suing-putin-who-now-fears-for-his/

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Digitize all files, make 3 copies & keep a copy off site (hard drive).

Good advice for personal files too, in case of burglary or fire.

Digitize / keep digital all photos too, anything created / written that you value, make 3 copies and keep one off-site somewhere (like with a friend / relative / office).

Update the off-site copy periodically by swapping the disk drive.

Cloud storage is also off-site, but the service provider must be chosen carefully, if you choose to go that way.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. So? Explain yourself as to who / what you are applying this concept to. . . . nt

[Duckhunter935]

5. I don't think so

Not the Russian people, only the defacto dictator that tends to assassinate people, break international agreements and international law. Not to mention invading and annexing parts of several sovereign nations.

[uhnope]

6. overpaid

btw being around 14 years doesn't prove anything except adolescence, which must explain emoticons

[7962]

7. The apologists should be along soon to tell us It was done by Ukraine.

They're good at quick response!!

[uawchild]

8. Why flame like that?

Won't you consider that statements like you just made could be perceived as a form of pre-emptive bullying and that such comments tend to curtail free discussion?

What was the point really? The perhaps unintended consequence is to limit open discussion

It sounds like school yard clique talk.

If you want to just have an echo chamber of like minded posters, the title of your post will certainly help create it.

[7962]

13. Oh come ON. Have you read NONE of the OPs critical of Russia??

Putin has his own version of free republic posting here to smack any talk of russian responsibility for that shootdown or any other bad press
Matter of fact, it appears as though one already may have shown in this thread, but had their posts removed. So I cant be sure.

[uawchild]

10. Nah it was bumpkin rebels

With a Russian missile system. They were incompetent clowns and Russia was wrong for giving that type of weapon to them.

And I do feel the country that supples weapons bear some of the responsibility for how they are used. Russia certainly does in this case. I would also consider us responsible for who uses our weapons too. I am consistent that way.

[7962]

14. I more likely agree with you here.

But Russia was doing its absolute best to blame everyone else and even faked videos to attempt it.

[asjr]

9. Wow--this must have the sickle and hammer all over it!

[reorg]

11. How is this LBN?

MH17 was shot down 2 years ago. The attorney or spook or whatever he is was robbed last Christmas? And NOW, six months later, he is 'fearing for his life'? Or is this 'latest breaking news' because nobody heard of this before?

So he has filed a lawsuit some time 'last month', so what.

Some 'latest breaking' news, indeed, and behind a paywall to boot.


So far the Telegraph's anniversary ruminations, here I have some more for you, it's about a 'journalist' you probably love to agree with:

“MH17 two years on”: Luke Harding’s cynical exploitation of one family’s pain


Also interesting:

'MH17 Inquiry' Has Blockbuster Proof BUK Videos Were Faked

[uawchild]

12. It's not LBN it's a narrative mill

These type of articles are the latest craze in propaganda. It's not that they are not true, they are just trivial add ons that then are given tons of press.

In this manner it is possible to keep a negative narrative going for years.

For example, is there an endless stream of articles about when both Ukraine and the US shot down civilian airliners? No there is not. Mostly because the Russians have not yet caught on to the trick of using narrative mills.

Another example of a narrative mill is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. One man posting reports of civilian deaths caused by the Syrian government. These may be true but they get selectively picked up and amplified in the press in a nonstop stream. Do the Syrian government deaths get the same treatment? No, just an occasional mention. A reader is led to believe that, by and large, only rebel civilians are killed -- that is the purpose these narrative mills, to distort perceptions by selective amplification of either trivial or unsubstantiated stories. These mills work even more effectively if more than one is pushing the same story.

[mallard]

16. Agree on the propaganda factor ...

Hard to believe how readily people are convinced of Russian subterfuge. The climate for casting blame, more as though to shunt it, is so rife with anti-Putin zeal, it's certainly not beyond all possibility that Skinner's office-trashing incident was staged to add steam.

[George II]

15. I wish people who write headlines (not you, the Telegraph writer) would take a minute...

....to reread them.

This one reads that Vladimir Putin fears for his life. Sloppy!