Iran has sentenced the military who were responsible for air defense and mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 passenger plane near Tehran in 2020, the local IRNA news agency reported.
Ten defendants received from one to 13 years in prison. The maximum punishment was received by the operator of the air defense system “Tor”, who, without the permission of the command post, identified a civilian aircraft as an enemy one and fired two missiles at it. The launch was made unintentionally due to an erroneous determination of the target, the court said. The operator will also have to pay compensation to the families of the victims.
Others sentenced include the then commanders of the Air Defense Forces of the Aerospace Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Tehran Air Defense Zone (one year in prison each), the then commander of the Tehran Regional Operations Control Center (one and a half years), the then commander of the 5th Tehran Air Defense Base and the duty officer of the Tehran operational headquarters (for two years), responsible for the command post “Tora” (three years) and employees responsible for this complex (from one to three years).
The Boeing 737-800 of Ukraine International Airlines crashed on January 8, 2020. 176 people died, among them were citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada and other countries. For the first time after the disaster, Iran called the engine fire the cause of the crash. Ukraine, the day after the plane crash, indicated among the versions under consideration that the plane was shot down by a Tor missile. As a result, the Iranian authorities admitted that Boeing was shot down by mistake. The disaster occurred a few days after Tehran’s response to the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who died on the night of January 3 as a result of a US rocket attack near Baghdad.
Source: Rosbalt
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