Int’l Investigation Implies Iran Isn’t Innocent in Infamous Interception

The United Nations special investigator of last year’s Ukraine International Airlines incident, in which a plane containing 176 passengers and crew was shot down over Iran, concluded her probe on Tuesday, accusing Iran of lying and failing to answer simple questions regarding the disaster. Agnes Callamard unveiled her findings after nearly a yearlong inquiry in which, she says, authorities in Tehran provided “inconsistent” and “contradictory” versions of the events that transpired on Jan 8, 2020. The Iranians’ initial denial of intercepting the plane, the fact that no domestic flights were targeted that day, timing and technical claims that were “inconsistent with the facts” – all these led Callamard to determine that something fishy was afoot. “My conclusion is that on the basis of international law, error is not a defense for Iran,” she said. After refusing for three days to admit the aircraft was shot down, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps last year finally announced that it had indeed fired two missiles at the Ukrainian airliner shortly after takeoff from Tehran, killing everyone on board. At a time of rising tension between Iran and the United States, Tehran claimed it had mistaken the plane for an American rocket.