MH17 investigators want to speak to Ukrainian prisoner

Dutch prosecutors investigating the downing five years ago of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine want to speak to a man being held by Ukrainian authorities, calling him a "person of interest" in their probe, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The fate of Volodymyr Tsemakh could be a factor in the stalled prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine as Dutch prosecutors want him to remain in Ukraine.

Unconfirmed reports have suggested that Tsemakh is on the list of prisoners that Moscow wants exchanged in return for freeing prisoners including 24 sailors captured off Crimea in November.

Brechtje van de Moosdijk, a spokeswoman for the Joint Investigation Team looking at the downing by a surface-to-air Buk missile of the Malaysian flight on July 17, 2014, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that Tsemakh is currently in a Ukrainian jail, "but if he's being swapped then, well, of course it's hard to say that we can speak to him when he would be in Russia."