MH17 and open source intelligence, a suspicious narrative – part 1

This blogpost is the first part of a series that I will publish in the last months before the MH17 trial starts, on March 9, 2020. It will review important parts of the evidence as publically disseminated or (implicitly) endorsed by the JIT. Subtitle will be: “The SBU and its voluntary intelligence unit”.

Part 1: Open source intelligence

The story about the way that evidence has been built-up and disseminated to the public sphere in the case of the downing of flight MH17, seems to be part of a new phenomenon. Perception management to gain popular back-up for political decisionmaking founds itself in cases of international importance more and more on “open source intelligence” (OSINT [1]), collected and explained by non-state actors (bloggers, NGOs).