The BBC’s Australia correspondent, Jon Donnison, is disputing claims by Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers in Australia that they have discovered “disturbing new footage” of the aftermath of the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine last year.
It shows Russian-backed rebels ransacking the luggage of the 298 passengers and crew who were killed in the tragedy.
Donnison says in a tweet that the “world exclusive” published by several Australian News Corp titles, including the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the Australian , “is not new at all” because the BBC “broadcast it a year ago”.
In a second tweet, he wrote that he is now “looking forward to an apology” from the papers.
The footage has also been shown on CNN. The broadcaster refers to it as “stunning new video just released” by “News Corp Australia”.
According to the News Corp articles, it obtained the footage after a 12-month pursuit. But a fragment of that same footage can be seen, with a BBC logo, on YouTube.
Thirty-eight Australians lost their lives on MH17 and the footage has prompted the country’s prime minister, Tony Abbott, to call it “an atrocity.”
The News Corp papers state that the 17-minute long footage was smuggled out from the rebels’ base in the east Ukraine city of Donetsk.
