Iran knew it shot down plane, Ukraine says
February 3, 2020
A recording shows the Iranian government immediately knew that it shot down a Ukrainian jetliner last month, despite denying any knowledge of it for days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
A transcript of the recording was published late on Sunday by the Ukranian 1+1 TV channel, with Zelenskiy acknowledging the authenticity of the recording.
"The recording, indeed, shows that the Iranian side knew from the start that our plane was shot down by a missile, they were aware of this at the moment of the shooting,'' Zelenskiy told 1+1.
The head of the Iranian team investigating the crash, Hassan Rezaifar, said on Monday that the recording is legitimate and said it was given to Ukrainian officials as part of an effort to share results from its investigation.
All 176 passengers and crew on board the Ukrainian International Airlines flight were killed in the January 8 crash.
Pilot saw 'light of a missile'
The recording contains a conversation between an Iranian pilot and an Iranian air-traffic controller who witnessed the moment the Ukrainian jet was hit.
The pilot, who is flying a separate plane, can be heard saying he saw "the light of a missile" in the sky.
"Dear engineer, it was an explosion. We saw a very big light there, I don't really know what it was,'' the pilot says in Farsi.
The air-traffic controller then tries to contact the Ukrainian jetliner, but is unable to do so.
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Iran criticized in crash response
After the recording was broadcast on Ukrainian television, Tehran blamed Kyiv for leaking the information.
Iran also said it would no longer share material with Ukraine from the crash investigation as a result of the leak.
"This action by the Ukrainians makes us not want to give them any more evidence," Rezaifar said according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.
After denying involvement for three days after the crash, Iran acknowledged that it accidentally shot down the plane.
The incident occurred just hours after Iran fired on US targets in Iraq in retaliation for a US airstrike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
Tehran has faced increasing pressure from Ukraine, Canada and other countries whose citizens were killed in the crash to send evidence abroad for international investigators to analyze.
rs/ng (AP, AFP)