Iran has said the suspects include missile defense personnel who made a “disastrous mistake.”
Iran’s judiciary has announced jail sentences for 10 unnamed individuals they believe were responsible for the downing of a Ukraine International Airlines commercial flight in January 2020.
The prime suspect in the case, identified only as the commander of the Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile defense system that shot down the aircraft with two missiles, received a discretionary sentence of 10 years for disobeying orders and three years for being “accomplice to semi-intentional murder,” according to the official news site of the judiciary.
The unnamed person will serve up to 10 years in prison, minus time served, and must pay damages to the families of the flight’s 176 victims, it said.
In addition, two personnel who operated the missile system each received a one-year prison sentence, while other officials in Tehran’s air defense controls and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) aerospace division received sentences ranging from one to three years.
The suspects will also reportedly receive more sentences not specified by the judiciary.
All verdicts – issued after 20 court hearings – were provisional and subject to appeal. A military court has also been ordered to continue investigations into other individuals who may be involved.
According to the judiciary, 117 plaintiffs were involved in the case, 55 of whom testified in court and were represented by 20 lawyers.
Flight PS752 took off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in the Iranian capital in the early morning of January 8, 2020 and was shot down minutes after takeoff. Iranian authorities initially denied the plane was shot down, but admitted the “disastrous mistake” three days later.
‘Human error’
According to Iran’s final report on the downing of the flight, “human error” was the cause, as air defense battery personnel fired the missiles without first obtaining proper clearance from senior commanders, believing a missile was about to hit Tehran To hit.
The incident came shortly after the IRGC fired missiles at two US bases in neighboring Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of senior IRGC commander General Qassem Soleimani by a US drone.
The judiciary’s report on Sunday also supported this account, saying staff failed to calibrate the defense system after it was moved shortly before the incident, ignoring orders to get immediate approval for firing during that night’s chaos, as Iran expected a possible US attack.
However, some of the victims’ families, in addition to officials in Ukraine and Canada — who counted dozens of civilians among the passengers killed — have condemned Iran for what they call a lack of transparency and cooperation.
A Canadian court ruled in 2021 that the downing was a “terrorist act” amid Tehran’s claims that the case has been politicized. Another court also awarded tens of millions of dollars to some families to be taken from Iranian assets in Canada.
The Iranian government set compensation of $150,000 for each of the victims’ families in late 2020 and later said payments had begun, but it is unclear how much was paid.