Status: 04/17/2023 02:45 a.m
In 2020, Iran’s military shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane – accidentally, as it was always said. An Iranian military court has now sentenced ten people to prison terms.
More than three years after a Ukrainian passenger plane was shot down, ten members of the Iranian military have been sentenced to several years in prison. The commander in charge of the air defense must go to prison for 13 years, a military court ruled. He is said to have ordered the shooting down of the Ukraine International Airlines plane. He was accused of not following the protocol in the run-up to the decision. In addition to the prison sentence, the commander was ordered to pay compensation to the victims’ families. The other convicts received prison sentences of up to three years.
Shortly after takeoff from Tehran, Iranian air defenses shot down the Ukrainian Boeing on January 8, 2020. All 176 occupants of flight PS752 died. The machine was on its way to Kiev. Most of the victims were Iranian and Canadian nationals. The families of the bereaved should now each receive $150,000 in damages, the court said.
Iran initially denied the launch
The Iranian military initially denied shooting down the passenger plane. However, three days after the crash, it stated that a missile had been accidentally fired at the plane. Angry protests then broke out.
To this day, many of those left behind and critics are of the opinion that the government in Tehran tried to cover up the case and failed to hold those responsible sufficiently accountable. To this day, there are still voices accusing Iran of intentionally shooting down the plane, even though the court spoke of human error.
Launch amid foreign policy tensions
The shooting down at that time occurred in a phase of massive foreign policy tensions between the USA and Iran. In early January 2020, US forces killed Iranian general Kassem Soleimani in Baghdad on the orders of then-President Donald Trump. In retaliation, Iran attacked two military bases in Iraq used by US forces. A few hours later, the Ukrainian passenger plane crashed.
