Iran prosecutor says 10 indicted for 2020 plane shootdown

Tehran: Iranian media are quoting the outgoing military prosecutor of Tehran as saying that 10 officials have been indicted for the 2020 shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger plane.

Tehran military prosecutor Gholamabbas Torki made the comment Tuesday while handing over his office to Nasser Seraj.

The semiofficial ISNA news agency and the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan new agency both reported the remarks, without elaborating.

Following three days of denial in January 2020 in the face of mounting evidence, Iran finally acknowledged that its forces mistakenly downed the Ukrainian jetliner with two surface-to-air missiles. In preliminary reports on the disaster last year, Iranian authorities blamed an air defenxe operator who they said mistook the Boeing 737-800 for an American cruise missile.

The shootdown happened the same day Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on US troops in Iraq in retaliation for an American drone strike that killed a top Iranian general.