An Iranian court has issued a final decision in the case of the downed Boeing 737-800 of Ukraine International Airlines in 2020. The announcement was made this Monday by the official representative of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Kanani Chafi, as reported by our affiliated media Aeroin.
“Given that this accident occurred on Iranian territory, the court thoroughly studied the case and made a final decision on the 10 officials responsible for this accident,” the diplomat told the Iranian news agency Tasnim.
In April, IRNA reported that an Iranian court issued a guilty verdict against 10 military personnel. The commander of the Tor M-1 anti-aircraft missile system was sentenced to 13 years in prison, and the other 9 defendants in the case, including military personnel from the Tor M-1 crew and representatives from the Regional Operations Control Center in Tehran, received prison sentences of 1.5 to 3 years. According to the court ruling, they must pay compensation to the families of the victims for each deceased.
The Ukraine International flight PS-752 crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran’s airport to Kiev on January 8, 2020. Among the 176 dead were citizens from Afghanistan, Great Britain, Germany, Iran, Canada, Ukraine, and Sweden, which caused its respective governments to intervene. The Iranian military announced that they shot down a Boeing flying near a military installation by mistake, confusing the plane with an “enemy target”.
Tehran handed over to Kiev a draft technical report on the causes of the accident, admitting that it was a human error. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmitry Kuleba, described it as an attempt to hide the true causes of the disaster.
Ukrainian officials also analyzed the flight pattern of the airplane and determined that it had stayed within the established corridor for civil flights from Imam Khomeini International Airport.
See also: Iran admits it mistakenly shot down Ukraine International Airlines flight 752
