Iran issues final verdict on 2020 Ukrainian plane crash
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An Iranian military court releases the final verdict on the case of Flight 752, which was downed near Tehran due to a human error in January 2020.
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Mourners attend a vigil for the victims of the Ukrainian passenger jet flight PS752 incident, in Toronto, Canada, January 8, 2022. (AFP)
An Iranian court has issued a verdict against 10 members of the country’s Armed Forces who were found guilty in the accidental downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 near Tehran in January 2020.
The main defendant was sentenced to 13 years in prison, while nine others received terms of one to three years, the Mizan news agency of Iran's Judiciary announced on Sunday.
The prime suspect is a defense system commander who "mistook" the passenger plane for an invading cruise missile and shot the plane twice, contrary to the orders of the commanding center, according to Mizan.
The commander's decision to down the plane "was due to his ignorance of the situation and his misplaced belief that the discovered target was hostile," the website said.
The other members who have been found guilty are the personnel of the Army’s air defense post.
The verdict was issued after more than a 3-year thorough investigation and a total of 20 trial hearings in a lengthy judicial process, where 117 plaintiffs filed their lawsuits, 55 of the plaintiffs read out their complaints, and 20 lawyers represented the plaintiffs and presented their relevant evidence, Mizan added.
"Examining this case has been one of the most important, sensitive, and complex judicial processes in the last few years of the country," the Judiciary-affiliated website said, adding that the verdict issued is preliminary and can be appealed within 20 days.
Each victim of the tragic incident will be given a reparation of $150,000, or its equivalent in Euros, the website said.
It is worth mentioning that the accident took place at a time of growing tensions during a regional confrontation with the United States.
On January 8, 2020, flight PS752, which was flying from Tehran to Kiev, crashed near Tehran minutes after takeoff, and resulted in the killing of all the 176 passengers on board, most of whom were Iranians.
Iran fired missiles at a US air base in western Iraq in retaliation for the January 3 assassination of Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps.
Martyr Soleimani was on an official visit to Iraq and was being transported in a car with Martyr Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis from Baghdad's International Airport upon his arrival, before being assassinated by the US.
Days after the downing of the Ukrainian plane, Iran acknowledged that the mismanagement of an air defense unit's radar system by its operator was the key human error that led to the accident.
