In the photo: In Kyiv, on the anniversary of the crash of UIA plane in Iran, a memorial sign was set in the spot of a future public garden to commemorate the killed passengers and the crew. The sign is a grey granite stone with a plate that bears the number of the flight «PS 752» and the date of the catastrophe 08.01.2020.

It was a scheduled international passenger flight from Tehran to Kyiv. Aboard the plane there were citizens from Iran, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan and Great Britain. All 176 passengers and the crew were killed by the crash.

The airplane crash has become the biggest in terms of the killed in the entire history of Ukrainian civil aviation. There were no flight restrictions in the sky over Tehran at the moment the Ukrainian plane took off from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport although a few hours before that Iran had launched several missile strikes on U.S. military bases in Iraq.

The Iranian government initially denied responsibility for the airplane's destruction insisting on technical malfunctions as the cause of the crash. However, three days after the catastrophe Iran had to admit that the plane had indeed been shot down by the military who mistook it for a cruise missile.

The Iranian government promised to conduct an investigation, punish the guilty of the tragedy and pay compensations. But the investigation as well as the promise to pay compensations dragged on through the entire last year. For instance, only last July the Iranian side sent the “black boxes” from the shot-down airplane to France to be deciphered by the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA). The deciphered flight records confirmed that the Ukrainian airplane had been shot by a missile attack.

And only during the last days of December, Ukraine did receive from the Iranian side the draft final report on the plane crash to study and prepare its remarks. The report was drafted in compliance with the Convention on International Civil Aviation. Also, according to the Iranian media, the Iranian government gave instructions to pay 150 thousand dollars of compensation to each family of the victims killed by the crash.

The point is that this information should be regarded as the position or rather an offer of the Iranian side while the main question whether the plane had been shot down accidentally or intentionally still remains without an answer. Since Iran insists on “a human error” as the cause of the catastrophe, the legal case was opened on charges of manslaughter or negligent homicide.

At the same time, the Ukrainian side has doubts that the plane was shot down by a human mistake. The General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine is concerned over the fact that the Iranian authorities hush up the names of the culprits and their official positions. Ukraine strongly believes that all guilty of the tragedy are criminally liable for the downing of the Ukraine International Airlines flight regardless of their positions. Such was the statement of Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Hyunduz Mamedov.

According to Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Yenin, only after justice has been done one may start speaking about “a worthy compensation” to the relatives of the killed, the aviation company and the affected states. “We will never trade justice for money. True, compensations are important but what’s even more important for the relatives of the killed is justice. They want to know the causes of the catastrophe and to see all the perpetrators of the crime in the prisoner’s box”, assured the Ukrainian diplomat.

This position is supported by other states whose citizens were killed in Iran. On the occasion of the anniversary of the tragedy, Ukraine, Canada, Afghanistan, Great Britain and Sweden demanded that Iran provide complete and thorough information on the tragedy. The statement reads in particular, “We urgently call on Iran to provide a complete and thorough explanation of the events and decisions that led to this appalling plane crash. … This kind of unthinkable tragedy must never happen again. Our countries will hold Iran to account to deliver justice and make sure Iran makes full reparations to the families of the victims and affected countries.”

The Canadian government is opposed to the compensation of 150 thousand dollars offered by Iran to the relatives of the victims of the crash of the Ukrainian airplane. Canada's special adviser on the federal response to Iran's January shootdown of a Ukraine International Airlines jetliner, Ralph Goodale, says that Iran doesn't have the right to offer compensation to the victims’ families unilaterally. Goodale told The Canadian Press the final amount will be subject to negotiations between Iran and Canada and the four other countries whose citizens were killed on the plane.

In the opinion of political analysts, there will be hard and long negotiations with the Tehran regime which will go on evading its direct responsibility for the death of the innocent people. It will try to cover up high-ranking officials and to minimize the sum of the compensation blaming everything on “a human error”. That’s why the joint efforts of the five affected countries and the increased international pressure on the Tehran regime will be of crucial importance.

In this connection, the recent statement of U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo on the anniversary of the catastrophe is of significance. He stressed, “Iran’s own investigation revealed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down the plane with two surface-to-air missiles. Yet, a year later, members of the IRGC have yet to be held accountable for taking the lives of 176 innocent civilian passengers and crew onboard. Instead, throughout this prolonged investigation, the regime has continued to protect those in the IRGC who were responsible. We look forward to the day the Iranian authorities value the lives of the Iranian people with the same zeal with which they now cover for their officials’ misdeeds”.

The newspaper Voice of Ukraine