Iran's Missile Defense System Commander Sentenced To 13 Years In Prison For Shooting A Ukrainian Passenger Plane Crash

The wreckage of the Ukrainian Airlines plane that was shot down. (Wikimedia Commons/Mehr News Agency/Aref Fathi)

JAKARTA - A court in Tehran sentenced 10 Iranian military personnel on Sunday to their involvement in the shooting of the Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 in 2020, according to Iran's semi-official media, Mehr News.

However, the sentence was rejected as a "false decision" by the victim's family which said Iranian authorities had failed to try those most responsible for the disaster.

The main defendant in the trial was an unnamed commander of Tor M1's surface-to-air missile defense system that shot down the plane, killing all 176 people on board. The commander was sentenced to 13 years in prison, according to Mehr.

The Boeing 737 flight departed from Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran on January 8, 2020, and headed to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, when it was hit by an anti-aircraft missile shortly after takeoff.

Days after the crash, Iranian authorities acknowledged that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)'s Air Force shot down the plane accidentally, after being identified as a cruise missile by an air defense operator.

In Tehran's court final decision on Sunday it said the passenger plane was shot down due to "human error". The commander fired missiles at civilian aircraft twice, "contrary to orders from command posts and other instructions," the court said, according to Mehr.

Meanwhile, the PS752 Flight Victims Family Association, an international group seeking justice for those killed, issued a statement on Sunday saying the victim's family "never recognized Tehran's regime court as legal."

The association claims the court has failed to prosecute "the main perpetrator" of the incident, instead demanding "ten low-ranking officers with unclear backgrounds and identities."

The association condemned the trial as a "false decision" after a court session was held privately, with the victim's family not present for trial. More than 70 complainants from the victim's family had withdrawn their complaints before the sentence was handed down and rejected the court's competence, he said.

The group considers the case still open, and demands that the dispute be considered by the International Court.

It is known that the crash of passenger jets occurred as tensions escalated with the United States, hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile strike against a US base in Iraq, an act of retaliation for the killing of a US drone against Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

At the time, thousands of anti-government protesters in Tehran took to the streets to denounce the crash, with some calling for the removal of Iran's supreme leader and demanding those responsible.

Of those killed in the accident, 138 were traveling to Canada, according to CBC. Among the victims were 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedish, four Afghans, three Germans and three Britons.