Tehran Military Prosecutor's "Explanation" on the Downing of the Ukrainian Plane

Tehran's military prosecutor gave an "explanation" about the incident to the survivors of a number of victims of the downing of the Ukrainian passenger plane. He stated that the cause of the downing of the plane was the explosion of a missile from the IRGC's defense system nearby, due to human error.

Nearly seven months after a Ukrainian airliner was shot down near Tehran Airport, the Tehran Provincial Military Prosecutor for the first time explained the course of the incident and its legal follow-up.

According to IRNA, Gholam Abbas Turki said on Monday, June 29, in a meeting with the survivors of a number of victims of the accident and their lawyers: "The explanation of the incident in today's meeting is not intended to make it seem natural or justify it."

Despite this claim, a large part of the military prosecutor's statements were a repetition of previous statements by officials, and part of them were justifications for issues such as the three-day delay in announcing the real cause of the plane's downing, the delay in delivering the black boxes, and the failure to cancel civilian flights despite the assessment of the possibility of a US attack.

Tehran-Kyiv flight 752 was targeted and shot down shortly after takeoff from the airport on the morning of January 8, 2019. All 176 people on board the plane lost their lives in the incident.

Despite evidence and reports that the plane was hit by an IRGC air defense missile, until January 11, and despite having precise knowledge of the cause of the accident, Islamic Republic officials vehemently denied these reports and provided false information.

Three days after the Ukrainian plane was shot down, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Aerospace Force, took responsibility for this catastrophic error in a television interview, saying that the IRGC's air defense system had "mistakenly identified the Ukrainian passenger plane as a cruise missile" and fired at it.

Explanation or justification?

Tehran's military prosecutor said about the delay: "Among the reasons that the relevant authorities have announced in this regard is the need for a minimum investigation and investigation to clarify how the shooting and the accident occurred, including investigating relevant individuals, downloading tapes of conversations and recorded videos, comparing radar graphs, and examining the possibilities and hypotheses raised, and the matter is under investigation."

The downing of the Ukrainian plane occurred a few hours after the Revolutionary Guards launched a number of missiles at two bases of American and allied forces in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of the then commander of the IRGC's Quds Force and his companions.

On the morning of January 4, two vehicles carrying Qassem Soleimani, four other Quds Force members, and five of their greeters were targeted by a US drone strike near Baghdad airport, killing all occupants, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces.

Concerned about US retaliatory attacks after launching missiles at two bases in Iraq, the Islamic Republic had put all air defense systems on full alert and deployed several reinforcement systems, including in western Tehran.

No suspension of flights in a "state of war"

Regarding the reason for not stopping civilian flights, Gholam Abbas Turki said: "According to existing guidelines, if a foreign enemy air attack on the country is certain, an order to stop flights should be issued. According to the evidence and evidence and the hierarchy's recognition, there was only the possibility of an attack and threat. Therefore, the responsible authorities have limited themselves to adopting control measures in accordance with the regulations, and the skies have not been completely closed to flights."

He said the Ukrainian plane was targeted as a result of a "gross error" in the defense system and the failure to obtain permission to fire from the network, adding that six people have been arrested in connection with the incident, three of whom were released on bail.

This "explanation" was made while the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force had said on January 11 that on the night of the incident, "the readiness status was at war level and the highest level of readiness is being communicated to the systems by the integrated defense network."

Equipment malfunction?

Tehran's military prosecutor also points to other cases that could be interpreted as equipment malfunctions. He says the mobile defense system fired two missiles at the Ukrainian plane, one of which missed its target and the second exploded near it, with traces of the explosion visible on the plane's fuselage.

Turki says that before the second shot, the defense system "does not accurately determine true north due to field conditions, and this gross error causes the direction of the targets detected by the system to be observed by the operator with a difference of about 105 degrees."

He also said: "The factory-built defense system lacks night vision cameras and a system for distinguishing friend from foe."

Another issue raised at the meeting of judicial officials and survivors of a number of victims was the Islamic Republic's delay in handing over the black boxes of the downed Ukrainian plane.

Iran initially announced that it would not hand over the boxes and demanded to receive the necessary equipment to read them in the country. Tehran later announced its readiness to send the black boxes to Ukraine or France, and finally, after the Ukrainian president threatened to sue Iran in international courts, it recently announced its readiness to deliver them to a center in France.

Tehran's military prosecutor claims that the country was ready to send black boxes abroad late last year, which coincided with the coronavirus pandemic, and "the foreign side announced that our laboratories would not be able to accept the black boxes until the coronavirus subsided."

This claim comes at a time when "foreign parties" have repeatedly criticized the Islamic Republic for its delay in this matter, both before and after the spread of the coronavirus.

At Monday's meeting, Abbas Ali Turki also announced "the payment of damages and compensation based on international rates" to the survivors of the victims of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752, while also saying that this requires "the completion of legal documentation."

$1.1 billion compensation claim in Canadian court

In February of last year, just one month after the Ukrainian passenger plane was shot down, a Canadian legal team filed a lawsuit on behalf of a number of survivors of the victims of the incident, demanding compensation of one and a half billion Canadian dollars (equivalent to about 1.1 billion US dollars).

The team is headed by Mark Arnold, a renowned Canadian lawyer who had previously succeeded in obtaining a court order in another case condemning the Islamic Republic and seizing two buildings belonging to it.

The Accident Investigation Bureau of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization announced in a report published on February 20 that 146 of the passengers on the downed Ukrainian plane had Iranian passports and five had Canadian passports.

Fifty-two of the victims were dual Iranian-Canadian citizens. Lawyers for Canadian survivors are calling the downing of the Ukrainian plane a “deliberate and deliberate” act of terrorism.

The Islamic Republic and Syria are the only countries that Canada has designated as state sponsors of terrorism. Under Canadian law, assets in these countries can be seized and sold if convicted in court.

Source: DW