adminTEHRAN (Tasnim) – A military court in Iran announced the verdict for those responsible for the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) in January 2020.
The judiciary news service in Iran reported late on Sunday that the verdict was delivered after a thorough examination of the case and 20 court sessions.
The suspects in the case were military officers working at an Iranian defense system command at the time of the plane’s downing.
The verdict stated that the commander of the missile operation had considered the Ukrainian plane to be a cruise missile and ordered to shoot it down without permission from higher authorities in the aviation command.
The first defendant received a 13-year prison sentence, and the other suspects received jail sentences of up to three years. The court added that the verdicts could be appealed within 20 days.
The downing of the plane in January 2020 caused the deaths of all 176 passengers aboard, and the incident has been one of the most complicated judicial procedures in Iran in recent years.
Shortly after taking off from IKA on January 8, 2020, Ukraine’s passenger plane was reportedly moving very close to a sensitive military location belonging to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) when it was shot upon.
