Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Iran’s president calls for crash probe
As protests flare, he is seeking a special court to examine the downing of a jetliner that killed 176 people.
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran called Tuesday for a special court to examine the downing of a passenger plane that killed 176 people, as protests flared in several cities over the disaster and officials’ shifting explanations for it.
But even as the president made the announcement, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, a powerful arm of the Iranian military, said it had arrested the person it identified as having filmed the video of a missile attacking the plane, which undercut the military’s initial denials that Iran was responsible. The announcement was released by Iranian media outlets affiliated with the Guard.
For three days after the crash of a Ukraine International Airlines jetliner, the military blamed mechanical failure. It eventually acknowledged that it had mistakenly shot the jet down with a missile, but insisted that “human error” was to blame, not any systemic problem.
In an apparent criticism of the military, Rouhani, a moderate, urged that an official inquiry be candid about its findings. But some hard-line lawmakers have lashed out at his administration, demanding resignations.
Gholamhossein Ismaili, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, said “arrests have been” made in the case but did not provide any details, leaving it unclear how many people had been detained or how senior they were.
“It would have been better if they had announced from the beginning that commissions are investigating,” Ismaili said, in an apparent criticism of the military and the government for the initial misleading statements.
Ismaili said the flight data recorders recovered from the Ukrainian plane would be sent to France for analysis.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is expected to deliver a Friday Prayer sermon this week, a role he plays at times of major crisis; the last was eight years ago.
The plane was shot down Jan. 8, shortly after takeoff from Tehran, as hostilities between Iran and the United States had escalated after a U.S. airstrike killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Hours before the airliner crashed, Iran had fired missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq in response to the general’s killing, and Iranian forces were on guard for retaliation.
After three days of denying any role in the crash, Iran’s military admitted the plane had been hit by at least one of its missiles.
Rouhani, a former commander of Iran’s air defense forces, said Tuesday that he wanted the issue “to be addressed to the people with honesty.”
Rouhani asked the judiciary to create a “special court, with a high-ranking judge and tens of experts,” to look into the downing of the airliner.
“The whole world will watch this trial,” he said.
Amid a heavy security presence in Tehran, protests broke out on several university campuses Tuesday, as they have daily since the government admitted that the plane had been shot down. At Tehran University, where Khamenei had prayed over the coffin of Soleimani days earlier, students chanted about the ayatollah, “our shame, our shame is our supreme leader.”
Officials in Tehran said 61 of the 176 victims had been identified through DNA testing, and that their remains could be turned over to their families.
Tensions have been building in the region since President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, then reimposed sanctions, which had been lifted under the accord, that have devastated Iran’s economy.
The deal has unraveled since then, with Iran steadily breaking away from limits on its nuclear program and Europe unable to find ways to keep Tehran committed.
On Tuesday, Britain, France and Germany triggered the so-called dispute mechanism action that paves way for possible further sanctions in response to Iran’s moves.