Iran makes arrests over airline disaster
FLIGHT 752 Canadian PM says tensions led to Iran shooting down passenger jet
TEHRAN/OTTAWA/PARIS/LONDON: Iran on Tuesday announced its first arrests over the shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner in Tehran last week, after a third night of angry protests over the disaster.
The Ukraine International Airlines plane was brought down by a missile shortly after take-off on Wednesday, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.
Tehran for days denied Western claims based on US intelligence that the Boeing 737 had been downed by a missile.
It came clean on Saturday when Revolutionary Guards aerospace commander Amirali Hajizadeh acknowledged a missile operator had mistaken the plane for a cruise missile and opened fire independently.
At a televised news conference, the judiciary announced the first arrests had been made over the blunder, without specifying how many.
“Investigations have been carried out and some people have been arrested,” said spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili. The announcement came shortly after President Hassan Rouhani said everyone responsible for the disaster must be punished.
“For our people it is very important in this incident that anyone who was at fault or negligent at any level” face justice, Rouhani said. “Anyone who should be punished must be punished. The judiciary must form a special court... The whole world will be watching.”
TRUDEAU: US TENSIONS CAUSED PLANE CRASH Victims of an Iran-downed jetliner would still be alive if not for a recent escalation of tensions partly triggered by the US, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday.
“I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families,” Trudeau said in an interview with Global television.
He added that the international community has been “very, very clear about needing to have a non-nuclear Iran” but also in “managing the tensions in the region that are brought about by US actions as well”.
EUROPE TO START DISPUTE MECHANISM France, Britain and Germany plan to trigger on Tuesday the dispute mechanism in the Iran nuclear deal following renewed violations by Tehran of the 2015 accord, two European diplomats said. “Our intention is not to restore sanctions, but to resolve our differences through the very mechanism that was created in the deal,” a diplomat said.
BORIS: NEW TRUMP DEAL CAN REPLACE N-PACT British PM Boris Johnson called on US President Donald Trump to replace the Iranian nuclear deal with his own new agreement to ensure that Tehran did not get an atomic weapon. “If we’re going to get rid of it, let’s replace it and let’s replace it with the Trump deal,” Johnson said.