Families of Flight 752 Victims File Complaints Against Three Senior Iranian Security and Military Officials
Families of victims of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 gathered on Sunday, April 15, in front of the Judicial Organization of the Armed Forces, demanding criminal charges be filed against three senior Iranian security and military officials.
Hamed Esmaeilion, spokesman for the Association of Families of Flight PS 752 Victims, wrote on social media that following their previous complaint against Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, the families this time filed a complaint at the prosecutor’s office against Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, chief of staff of the armed forces.
Esmaeilion, who lost his wife and young daughter in the shooting down of the Ukrainian airplane by the Revolutionary Guard’s air defense system, stated that the families also expressed their protest regarding the legal proceedings and the manner in which the prosecutor’s final order was communicated to them.
About two weeks before this gathering, the Association of Families of Flight 752 Victims announced that the military prosecutor’s office had sent a notice to the families of the plaintiffs informing them that it had issued orders prohibiting prosecution of high-ranking government officials in this case.
According to the association, the military prosecutor’s office only issued summons for “ten unnamed individuals” and “the families’ lawyers’ attempts to review the case file, learn about the investigation methods and interrogations, the defendants’ statements, and find their names have come to nothing.”
Ukraine has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the investigation into those responsible for this incident and says that the reluctance of Iranian officials to provide answers and concrete evidence strengthens suspicion that the shooting down of the Ukrainian airplane was intentional, an accusation that Iran has rejected, insisting that “human error” caused the shooting of the plane.
Esmaeilion further reported in his account of Sunday’s gathering of the families in front of the Judicial Organization of the Armed Forces about the conduct of security forces toward them.
He wrote that after the gathering, military, police, and plainclothes forces began photographing the families, and the mothers’ protests were met with confrontation from plainclothes personnel.
To date, multiple reports have been published about measures by Iranian security forces to intimidate families of Flight 752 victims. Canada’s Security Intelligence Service also stated last month in its annual report that it possesses “credible reports” of harassment and intimidation of families and relatives of victims of the Revolutionary Guard’s shooting down of the Ukrainian airplane in Canada.
Ukrainian airplane Flight PS 752 was shot down on December 8, 2019, by at least two Revolutionary Guard air defense missiles, killing all 176 people on board.
Source: Radio Farda
