13 years in prison for the main defendant in the Ukrainian plane case

The judiciary sentenced the main defendant in the Ukrainian plane case to 13 years in prison.

On January 9, 2019, at 6:19 AM, shortly after taking off from Imam Khomeini International Airport, a Ukrainian passenger plane was targeted by two missiles 24 seconds apart from the Revolutionary Guards' air defense system and crashed near Shahedshahr, Tehran Province, killing 176 people on board.

The Islamic Republic initially claimed ignorance of the attack, then admitted to it and announced that a mistake had been made. A mistake that not only took the lives of 176 passengers, but also affected the lives of their families. A case that has not been fully and accurately investigated after three years.

Now, three years later, the judiciary has sentenced the main defendant in this case to 13 years in prison and eight other defendants to one to three years in prison. 13 years in prison for someone who caused the horrific deaths of 176 people.

Morteza Kazemian, a journalist, writer, and political activist living in Paris, also reacted to this verdict, writing on his Twitter account: "The judiciary sentenced the main defendant in the case of the downing of the Ukrainian plane and the killing of 176 people to 13 years in prison, and eight other defendants to one to three years in prison. Compare this to the heavy judicial sentences issued to protesting citizens in the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement, especially the oppressed who have been sentenced to death or have been executed."

This ruling by the judiciary came at a time when 7 months have passed since the popular revolution, and many Iranian protesters, due to their participation in protests demanding justice, have been charged with war crimes and corruption on earth and have been sentenced to death. Some of them were immediately executed in less than a month.

What is the difference between people who want justice and who take to the streets to protest and those who easily take up rockets and kill 176 people? The law of the Islamic Republic states that those who protest should be executed, but those who cause the mass deaths of innocent people are only given a few years in prison to serve their sentence. Is this the justice that the Imam of the Shiites mentioned?