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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch government released dozens of documents Tuesday about the aftermath of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but much of the information was redacted.
One of the Dutch broadcasters that requested the information be made public, RTL News, said it would protest against the number of redactions and take the government to court if necessary to compel it to reveal more details.
"We want the relevant facts so that a serious reconstruction can be made of the Cabinet's performance" after the crash, RTL's deputy editor, Pieter Klein, said on the broadcaster's website.
Flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board. Dutch crash investigators and police are probing the cause, which is believed to be a surface-to-air missile strike.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte's government is coming under increasing pressure to reveal all it knew about the risks of allowing passenger planes to fly over conflict-torn eastern Ukraine last year.
Rutte also has avoided explicitly saying that a missile downed the Boeing 777 as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The government says it has to be cautious in what it says because Dutch authorities are leading criminal and civil investigations into the crash.
The release of documents appeared to do little to cast new light on what the government knew. The pages include agendas of crisis meetings to discuss the disaster and plans for the repatriation of bodies found among the wreckage.
In a cover letter sent to media organizations that made freedom of information requests, the government said redactions were made for a variety of reasons, including to protect the privacy of individuals, in the interests of the Netherlands' relationship with other states and to not reveal details of security around Dutch personnel working near the crash site.
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