Tag: Mark Rutte

Journalist buys fake Syrian passport for Dutch premier Rutte

A Syria-based journalist for news magazine Nieuwe Revu has managed to obtain a forged Syrian passport and ID card with a photograph of prime minister Mark Rutte on it.

Harald Doornbos paid some €750 for the passport, which he was able to pick up from the forgers within 40 hours.

The fixer told Doornbos that he would be able to enter Cyprus with the passport, which was in the name of Malek Ramadan.

Doornbos said the aim of the exercise had not been to buy a forged passport featuring Rutte, but he had been asked to supply a name and photograph, so he opted for the prime minister.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian war, thousands of blank passports and the Assad government’s printers have ended up in the hands of insurgents, according to Revu. These insurgents will sell passports showing any photo given to them to anyone willing to pay.

Doornbos describes the consequences as terrifying as it will be even more difficult for security services to detect terrorist if getting hold of a fake identity is this easy. Doornbos describes the route a terrorist will take, according to his sources:

“From an ISIS or al-Qaeda area in northern Syria a returning foreign terrorist fighter will travel to Bodrum in western Turkey. From there he makes the illegal crossing to Greece. In Greece he shows his false Syrian passport to the authorities. Since the fake passport gives a fake name, the Greeks have no idea that they are not dealing with a Syrian refugee but a member of ISIS or al-Qaeda. From Greece the journey goes through Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary. After arriving in Schengen member Hungary, the jihadist can travel with his false Syrian passport through all the other Schengen states without any further checks.”

‘Western intelligence services are trying to exploit MH17 tragedy’

Western special services know who shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine and the reasons behind the move but prefer to manipulate this information and take advantage of the tragedy, retired Lt. Gen. Nikolai Pushkarev, formerly of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) told RIA Novosti.

“The Western intelligence and the Americans are very well aware of all the details: who shot [flight MH17] down, why and what for, but manipulate this information and this incident for their own benefit.

This provocation was organized to lay [the blame] on Russia and force it into sending troops to Ukraine, officially, but the Russian government did not succumb to this provocation,” Pushkarev said in an interview.

Pushkarev added that the United States is interested in a “direct military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”

Pushkarev also stated that investigating the real reasons behind the catastrophe is not the responsibility of the Main Intelligence Directorate.

“The Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service are responsible for investigating this case, because they have the needed experts in these structures, this is their prerogative,” he explained.

On July 17, a Malaysia Airlines plane flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk, killing all 298 people on board. According to a preliminary report issued by the Dutch Safety Board early in September, the plane likely broke up in mid-air as a result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from the outside.

Kiev accused independence supporters in eastern Ukraine of shooting the plane down, but has not provided any evidence to back this claim.

The local militia leaders have said that they do not have weapons capable of shooting down a plane flying at 32,000 feet.

Meanwhile Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that a thorough, independent investigation of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 is needed before any decision on where those responsible should face trial, Reuters reported.

The aircraft crashed in eastern Ukraine in July with the loss of all 298 people aboard. “What we now have to do is through the independent safety boards to exactly understand what happened and the public prosecutors have to work on the prosecution which follows from this,” Rutte said.

Rutte was visiting Kuala Lumpur to meet his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak. The Dutch PM flew from Amsterdam on Flight MH19, re-named from MH17.

The removal of fragments of the Malaysian Boeing which crashed on the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) might begin on Friday, a source from the DPR Ministry for Emergency Situations told TASS.

“The removal of the plane fragments will approximately begin on Friday,” the source said.

An unnamed source from the DPR transport ministry has confirmed the report. “We have been coordinating the necessary documents and the order in which the fragments will be removed. If things work out right, the first batch of the Boeing fragments will be sent to the Netherlands,” the source said.