THERE IS NO CHAIN OF CUSTODY

Higgins has tweeted this:

BBC News - MH17 crash: My revealing fragments from east Ukraine http://t.co/3Vz2R3jMKf

— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) April 16, 2015

It's about Jeroen Akkermans and his mysterious shrapnel. Akkermans claims to have found some fragments from the crash site of MH17, taken them away, smuggled them through customs, and had them analysed. The analysts concluded that the fragments were shrapnel from a missile, possibly a BUK missile.

So let's just go through all that again, just to make sure we are absolutely clear what Akkermans has done.

Akkermans claims to have found fragments at a crash site, a crime scene. But rather than inform the investigating authorities where those fragments were so that they could gather the evidence themselves, and/or collecting the fragments and handing them over to the investigating authorities, Akkermans allegedly removed those fragments from the crime scene.

Akkermans then somehow smuggled them through customs and had them analysed by 2 different sets of analysts. Did he pay the analysts for their services? Why did he choose the analysts he selected?

And only a few months later, after the analysts had concluded that the fragments were possibly shrapnel from a BUK missile, did Akkermans tell the investigating authorities.

If this evidence was submitted in a court of law in a proper trial Akkermans would be laughed out of court.

There is no chain of custody.

I could be given some rusty fragments of an air-to-air missile, then say that I found those fragments at the crash site, pay someone to analyse the fragments, and the analysts would say it was shrapnel from an air-to-air missile, but because I said I found the fragments at the crash site and removed them, instead of telling the investigating authorities, the conclusion of the NATO media would be that an air-to-air missile downed MH17.

See. It's dead easy.