KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th February, 2020) Iran has once again ignored an official request from Ukraine to provide the evidence that is the basis for detaining the suspects in the recent downing of a Ukrainian commercial airliner, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka said on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, media reported that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps detained a person who filmed a video allegedly showing a missile attack on the Ukraine International Airlines plane.
"I have addressed the Iranian Prosecutor General three times requesting international legal assistance. In particular, we asked to provide, apart from the evidence that the [Ukrainian] investigation [into the plane crash] needs, the evidence, on the basis of which, for example, people were detained in Iran. There was information ... about the detention of three or four people," Ryaboshapka said during a meeting of the Ukrainian parliament's committee on law enforcement, as broadcast by the Ukrainian National news agency.
The prosecutor added that Kiev was still unable to contact Iran's law enforcement agencies, and Tehran had not yet responded to Kiev's request for granting Ukrainian experts access to the downed plane's black boxes. The only way to do it is to involve diplomats, Ryaboshapka suggested.
In addition, the official noted that Ukraine had drafted an agreement on creating a joint investigation team with other countries whose citizens died in the plane crash.
A Kiev-bound Boeing 737-800 crashed shortly after departing from Iran's Imam Khomeini Airport on January 8. All 176 people on board were killed, including citizens of Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Canada, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Following the incident, the Iranian military admitted to unintentionally shooting down the jetliner, which was confused with a hostile cruise missile due to Iran's anticipation of a retaliatory strike from the United States at the time.
