Daily US Times: A report from Canadian government on the downing of a Ukrainian jet has found no evidence it was “premeditated”, but said Iran was “fully responsible”.
Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was hit by two missiles after taking off from Tehran Internation Airport on 8 January 2020. All 176 people on board died.
Iran has said it mistook the aircraft for a US missile. The country was accused of hampering independent inquiries.
Some 138 of the passengers on board the doomed plane had ties to Canada.
Citizens or residents of four other countries – the UK, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Sweden – were also killed.
On Thursday, Canada said that the blame lay with Iran’s “civilian and military authorities”.
While acknowledging in the report that an air defence unit operator “likely acted on his own in making the decision to launch the missiles”, an eight-month forensic investigation concluded that the incident would not have happened if not for the “incompetence, recklessness, and wanton disregard for human life” of Iranian officials.
Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau at a news conference on Thursday: “Iran does not get off the hook in any way whatsoever. It is totally responsible for what happened.”
The probe found that Iranian anti-aircraft missiles were on high alert, yet authorities did not notify airlines in operation at the time or close its airspace.
Mr Garneau said that a missile operator made “a series of extremely flawed decisions that could have and should have been avoided”.
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