a. Forensic Journalism

Bellingcat is a non-profit research service based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, that investigates human rights violations10. The organization also conducts investigations in collaboration with government or other similar non-government organizations as well as New York times and Forensic Architecture11. Bellingcat's reputation has been enhanced by the exposure of the Malaysia Airlines 777 incident in 2014.

2014 was the darkest year for Malaysia Airlines since its inception. A few months after the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on March 8, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 crashed in a missile attack near the village of Hrabov (Donetsk Oblast) in eastern Ukraine on July 1712. The geographical location of the plane crash in Donetsk Oblast, which belongs to the Ukrainian separatist organization (PS: A few days before the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 21 that it recognized the Donetsk People's Republic as an independent country13). Simultaneously, the military conflict in the region was at its peak at the time of the disaster; thus, the public generally believes that the crash's responsibility includes the participants in the military conflict, the Ukrainian government forces, and separatist groups in eastern Ukraine. Therefore, the international media focused their attention on the Ukrainian government, forcing the Ukrainian government to take responsibility for the incident and apologize.

Bellingcat group worked with British state to investigate the MH17 case as an investigative journalism organization specializing in human rights violence investigations in conflict zones and factchecking and open-source intelligence14. Multiple reports released by the Bellingcat investigative team demonstrated that the deployment of the Buk missile launcher that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) over Ukraine involved senior officials of the Russian Ministry of Defense and its military intelligence services. They combine calls intercepted by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) related to MH17 and biometric analysis with voice forensic personnel to confirm the identity of Russian officials involved in the division of Ukraine15. In the content of the intercepted phone calls, analyzing the specific meaning of unique nouns-code names, as well as the code name "Skif" and "San", was

Figure 3 The flight path of MH17 and the last FDR (Flight Data Recorder) point shown in red along with the front line; this is highlighted in blue with the approximate Bezler control area; and the administrative border between Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in white. The Buk missile site and the main crash site are shown with green and red icons, respectively. Artwork:Bellingcat

10 2022. https://www.bellingcat.com/about/. 11 2022. https://www.bellingcat.com/about/. 12 3 Sebastian Anthony, “Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Shot down in Ukraine: How Did They Do It?” ExtremeTech.com, 2014. 13 KOVACEVSKI CONDEMNS RUSSIA’S DECISION TO RECOGNIZE DONETSK AND LUHANSK PEOPLE’S REPUBLICS AS INDEPENDENT. INFOMAC Daily News Service. Macedonian Information Centre, 2022. 14 Yuliya Ilyu. “Journalistic Investigations in the Digital Age of Post-Truth Politics: The Analysis of Bellingcat’s Research Approaches Used for the (Re)Construction of the MH17 Case.” Perekrestki, no. 1(2019): 56. http://journals.ehu.lt/index.php/perekrestki/article/view/977. 15 Bellingcat."A Birdie Is Flying towards You’ Identifying the Separatists Linked to the Downing of MH17." 2.

mentioned many times during the missile transportation to Donetsk and launch, it found that was a former Russian Alpha Special Forces "Aleksandr Sergeyevich Khodakovsky"16（Figure3）.Decoding of the codename proves Russian involvement in the transportation and launch of the Buk missile. Despite being compromised by data from Russian hackers during the investigation17, Bellingcat organization successfully exposed the role of Russian separatist leaders in the operation and their ultimate objective in this case. The methodology of the Bellingcat research base on open source data, most of the data in the Website and social media platforms. They use mainly digital mapping tools and data on social media to create a complete narrative of the event, which has changed the way the media discusses the event. However, the openness of the internet and the use of big data often lead to the authenticity of the results, while political factors can affect the credibility of publicly available data. Bellingcat group investigates cases using the grounded theory (GT) method, which is characterised by building a theory from empirical information, generalising from primary sources, and then rising to a systematic theory18. Therefore, the cases investigated at Bellingcat are supported by empirical evidence and cannot be built upon their own as a complete framework, relying on available data for research. It also requires an in-depth study of each open data and a screening report. Hence, journalism in forensic science is likely limited by the authenticity of the data and the need for existing available factual evidence to build the framework .

Figure 4 The intercepted calls from Ukraine were analyzed to identify the person and the position corresponding to each code. Artwork: Bellingcat

16 Bellingcat."A Birdie Is Flying towards You’ Identifying the Separatists Linked to the Downing of MH17." 38. 17 Jane McCallion. “Bellingcat Vs Fancy Bear: How Hackers Tried to Halt the MH17 Investigation.” IT Pro ,2016. 18 Massimiliano Tarozzi. “What Is Grounded Theory?” London [England: Bloomsbury Academic (2020): 3.