TEHRAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th April, 2021) Gholam Hossein Esmaili, the spokesman for Iran's judiciary, on Tuesday rejected claims of Tehran deliberately shooting down the Ukrainian flight PS752 in January 2020.
Earlier in the month, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, stated in an interview with the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper that Kiev believes Iran intentionally shot down Flight 752 in a "deliberate attack" and not, as Tehran claims, by accident.
"The investigation suggests that the incident with the downed Ukrainian plane was not deliberate. Claims that it was deliberate are false," Esmaili said at a press conference.
The spokesman informed journalists that the court had received a list of alleged offenders.
"It is up to the judge who presides over the case to decide whether the trial will be open or closed. So far, the judge has not voiced any decision," Esmaili added.
On January 8, 2020, a Boeing 737 operated by Ukraine International Airlines crashed soon after departing from an airport in Tehran. Citizens of Iran, Canada, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom were among the 176 passengers and crew who died. Iran later revealed that its military had shot down the plane by accident, confusing it for a hostile cruise missile during an escalation with the US over Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani's assassination.
