Ten Iranian military personnel have been sentenced to prison terms for their involvement in the January 2020 crash of a Ukrainian airliner, killing all 176 people on board, Iranian prosecutors said on Sunday.
The main defendant, an air defense system commander, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the maximum sentence, for disobeying the orders of his superiors by shooting down the plane with two missiles.
The other nine soldiers were sentenced to prison terms of one to three years.
The commander of the defense system “fired two missiles at the aircraft operating flight PS752, in violation of command post orders, without authorization and in violation of instructions,” added the same source quoted by the France agency -Press.
Iran’s judiciary has not provided details of the identity of the convicts, who can still appeal against the sentences, including four defense system officers, an air defense base commander, and a control center officer.
On January 8, 2020, Iranian forces shot down the Ukraine International Airlines plane connecting Tehran to Kiev, killing 176 people on board, mostly Iranians and Canadians, including several citizens with dual citizenship.
On the night of the tragedy, Iranian air defenses were on alert for fear of a US attack.
After several days of denial, the Iranian armed forces admitted responsibility for the attack on the plane, claiming “human error”.
In November 2021, the judicial authority announced the start of the trial against 10 military personnel “of different ranks” for their involvement in this case.
The tragedy involving this Boeing, which had many students on board, also sparked outrage in Iran, especially among university students in the country.
In early 2022, Iran assured it had begun compensating some of the victims’ families, paying “a sum of $150,000” each, and committing to compensate the rest.
In December of the same year, a group of four countries, led by Canada, announced that it had requested that Tehran submit to mandatory arbitration to “hold Iran accountable” for the downing of the plane.
Canada, Ukraine, Sweden and the United Kingdom relied on the 1971 Montreal Convention, which regulates crimes against civil aviation, to request this arbitration.
Source: DN
