The wreckage of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, downed by the Iranian military near Tehran, January 8, 2020
UPDATE, APRIL 7:
An Iranian prosecutor says 10 officials have been indicted over January 2020 shootdown of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, killing all 176 passengers and crew.
“The indictment of the case of the Ukrainian plane was also issued and a serious and accurate investigation was carried out and indictments were issued for 10 people who were at fault,” Tehran military prosecutor Gholamabbas Torki said.
He did not name the defendants.
UPDATE, MAR 18:
Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization has formally blamed an air defense operator for the shootdown of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 in January 2020, killing all 176 passengers and crew.
The CAO said in its 285-page final report on Wednesday, “The plane was identified as a hostile target due to a mistake by the air defense operator…near Tehran and two missiles were fired at it.”
The report cited a “chain of errors”, including a communication lapse between the air defense system and the command center. However, it avoided any mention of Revolutionary Guards responsibility for the killings.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba responded on Facebook:
What we saw in the published report today is nothing more than a cynical attempt to hide the true reasons for the downing of our plane. We will not allow Iran to hide the truth, we will not allow it to avoid responsibility for this crime.
UPDATE, 1645 GMT:
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has rejected the analysis of UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamarad as “inauthentic, unprofessional, and falsified”.
Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh declared the shootdown of the Ukrainian jet was outside the authority of Callamard: “There are definite and detailed legal and technical frameworks for addressing this subject in international law, and the area of activity of the rapporteur has nothing to do with those frameworks and regulations.”
He warned that the “half-baked and groundless” letter might have a negative effect on the legal procedure. Without dealing with the substance of Callamard’s report, he asserted that she had no “credible evidence”.
ORIGINAL ENTRY, FEB 24: UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard has concluded that “Iran committed multiple human rights violations in shooting down Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 and in the aftermath of the deadly attack”.
An Iranian anti-aircraft battery downed the Ukraine jet with two missiles on January 8, 2020. All 176 passengers and crew — more than 100 of them Iranian citizens — were killed.
The shootdown came five days after a US drone strike assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
The Iranian military initially blamed “catastrophic engine failure” and did not inform President Hassan Rouhani of the circumstances. Three days after the crash, the military and Rouhani finally acknowledged the downing, sparking mass protests across Iran.
It is still unclear when the Supreme Leader knew of the shootdown and if he authorized the coverup.
In its final report in July, Iran’s civil aviation authority maintained that a broken radar system disrupted communication between the anti-aircraft battery and Revolutionary Guard commanders.
“Contrived to Mislead and Bewilder”
Callamard is the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions. She wrote in a 45-page letter after a six-month inquiry:
The inconsistencies in the official explanations seem designed to create a maximum of confusion and a minimum of clarity. They seem contrived to mislead and bewilder….
The Iranian government claims it has nothing to hide, yet it has failed to carry out a full and transparent investigation in line with its international obligations. As a result, many questions are left unresolved.
She summarized that Tehran’s belated assessments “suggest at minimum a reckless disregard for standard procedures and for the principles of precaution, which should have been implemented to the fullest given the circumstances and the location of the missile unit in the proximity of a civilian airfield”.
Callamard delivered the letter to Tehran in December, but has received no response. The document was published on Tuesday after a 60-day period of confidentiality.
About the time that it received the Rapporteur’s findings, the Rouhani Government finally allocated $150,000 for the families of each of the 176 victims.
However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif that it is “possible to start calculating the amount of compensation” only “after establishing all the facts about the tragedy”.
Canada, where many of the victims lived, also rejected the offer as it had not seen “full disclosure…on all relevant evidence”.
In an audio recording, obtained by the Canadian Government, an Iranian official — identified by sources as Foreign Minister Zarif — said the shootdown might have been intentional, but the highest levels of the Iranian regime and Revolutionary Guards will never acknowledge the cause:
There are reasons that they will never be revealed. They won’t tell us, nor anyone else, because if they do it will open some doors into the defence systems of the country that will not be in the interest of the nation to publicly say.
See also Ukraine Jet Shootdown: Did Iran FM Zarif Suggest It May Have Been Intentional?
Callamard concluded in her letter to Tehran:
It appears that your Excellency’s Government did not respect and protect the lives of these
innocent civilians and failed to investigate their killing….It appears that your Excellency’s Government may have also committed an internationally wrongful act against other States, particularly Ukraine.
“Iran Officials Avoid Blame of Revolutionary Guards Over Ukraine Jet Shootdown”
What a stupid title. The air defense operator who made the mistake was a member of the IRGC.
If you claim that there was a “cover up” (rather than an information blackout) why was this “cover up” terminated after 3 days and the military revealed what had happened? Your conspiracy claim makes no sense whatsoever.
“The Iranian military initially blamed “catastrophic engine failure” and did not inform President Hassan Rouhani of the circumstances. ”
Funny how engine failure was what foreign experts were suggesting: Iran plane crash: Engine problem behind tragedy that killed 176 people, intelligence officials suggest: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-plane-crash-cause-latest-engine-shot-down-ukraine-canada-boeing-737-800-a9276141.html
The Ukrainian embassy itself stated that, ““According to preliminary information,” the statement had read, “the plane crashed as a result of a technical failure of the engine. The possibility of a terrorist attack or missile strike are currently ruled out.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-airlines-passenger-plane-with-180-aboard-crashes-near-tehran-reports
“It is still unclear when the Supreme Leader knew of the shootdown and if he authorized the coverup.”
There was no “coverup”. Only the head of the IRGC air defense branch knew what might have happened. Officials were not informed until the closed-door internal investigation was complete: https://ifpnews.com/leader-informed-of-plane-downing-friday-urged-honesty-in-telling-public
“Fars News Agency reported on Saturday that Ayatollah Khamenei had been notified on Friday morning of the real cause of a January 8 crash of a Ukrainian jetliner near Tehran, after the Iranian top military commanders became confident of a human error in downing of the passenger plane.
Immediately after being informed about the disastrous mistake from the Iranian air defence in the accident, the Leader ordered an extraordinary meeting of the Supreme National Security Council on Friday noon to examine the issues, and emphasized that right after conclusion of the session, “the truth behind the accident and the results of the investigation must be reported to the public explicitly and candidly by the relevant organizations,” the report added.”
The truth is that a local military operator made a mistake. The IRGC air defense had 3 days to confirm this during which time officials, including other military commanders, were kept in the dark. There was no ‘cover up.
Rastgoo,
We’ve covered all these points before — your attempt to deflect over engine failure is weak (the initial non-Iranian assessments were “preliminary” and hindered by limited if any info from Iranian authorities) and Fars News, as Revolutionary Guards outlet, is not exactly a reliable outlet for understanding the Supreme Leader’s position.
S.
Scott,
You seem to be under impression that human lives matter to these tyrants. You have been following iri affair for sometime. We(you) have witnessed(not in person) murders, rapes, tortures, thievery and all out corruptions. It started as a revolution and turned into corrupt theocracy of dark ages. Is there another way of describing islamic republic.
“And Iranian military (who did fire the missiles) putting out the declaration — on the day of the shootdown — of engine failure.”
You are just unaware of Iran’s command and control process. Iran does not have an integrated air defense network with a central command. It is point defense. The decision to fire on the plane was taken by a local operator whose communications equipment wasn’t operable (some say because it was hacked).
The Iranian high command did not order the plane to be shot down. They had to confirm whether the operator was a saboteur/infiltrator or if there was a cyber-attack that caused the missile to fire. The civilian government, and many commanders within the military, were not informed until the investigating branch of the military could gather all the facts.
There is the separate fact that the type of missile used did actually cause engine failure because it used a proximity fuse that did not hit the fuselage.
Rastgoo,
I am very aware of Iran’s command and control process. Yes, central command did not reply quickly so the anti-aircraft battery fired.
Iran’s commanders knew about this communications lapse on the day of the downing — and still made up the story of “engine failure”.
Thanks for writing.
S.
The engine catching fire is what brought down the aircraft. So it wasn’t a lie. The aircraft didn’t explode in mid air.
Other experts confirmed this. Iran’s civil authorities also believed the engine had caught fire and did not know that the Tor missile detonates before impact. Not all of the Iranian military were aware of the facts. This was a communications mess-up, not a deceitful cover-up.
The “engine catching fire” because it was struck by two exploding missiles….
If you weren’t belittling the killing of 176 people, including more than 100 Iranian citizens, this would be black comedy material….
There was no ‘cover up’. The military put a lid on what had happened until it could confirm what had happened. That was standard procedure.
But the civilian airport should have been closed. The IRGC rushed its retaliation. But there were no “human rights violations” since it was an accident.
“Put a lid on what had happened” — well, that’s a creative way of saying “lying with claim of catastrophic engine failure”….
The Ukrainian government and independent aviation experts, came up with the engine failure hypothesis:
“Engine failure caused the crash of a Ukrainian airliner in Iran, rather than a missile attack or act of terrorism, the Ukrainian embassy to Iran said on Wednesday, citing preliminary information.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-crash-engine-idUSKBN1Z70W5
“Five security officials, including one European, one Canadian and three Americans, told Reuters an initial assessment by western intelligence agencies had shown the jet suffered a technical malfunction”: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-plane-crash-cause-latest-engine-shot-down-ukraine-canada-boeing-737-800-a9276141.html
The Iranian military had to confirm that one of their missiles had been fired and whether it was deliberate, an accident or a hack. That process took 3 days and not all members of the military were involved in the investigation and had the relevant information.
So you can keep trying to claim that the authorities lied but the reality is that they did not know what happened until they could confirm the facts – and that process took 3 days.
Rastgoo,
You might note that there is a huge difference between Western agencies and Ukrainian Embassy (who didn’t fire the missiles) talking about “preliminary information” re engine failure….
And Iranian military (who did fire the missiles) putting out the declaration — on the day of the shootdown — of engine failure.
S.