SourAll 176 people aboard the Ukraine International Airlines
Flight PS752, most of them Canadian, were killed when the plane
crashed shortly after takeoff en route from Tehran to Kiev on
Jan. 8, 2020.
Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial,
summary or arbitrary executions, said on Tuesday she had found
no concrete evidence the plane was targeted intentionally but
that Iran had not proven it was accidental.
After denying blame for three days, Iran's Guards said they had
shot it down by mistake while under high alert for a possible
attack. Hours earlier it had attacked U.S. targets in Iraq in
retaliation for Washington's killing of Iran's top general,
Qassem Soleimani, with a drone strike five days before.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said
Callamard's "sphere of activity has nothing to do with these
regulations and frameworks. Rather, her unwarranted involvement
might not have a constructive impact on the legal procedures as
well".
Callamard, who carried out a six-month investigation into the
case under her global mandate, said on Tuesday that Iran had not
replied to her detailed queries. She is stepping down from the
independent post at the end of March, a year early in the
six-year term, to take another job, officials said.
Khatibzadeh accused her of rushing out her statement.
"Maybe one of the reasons of this unwarranted haste is her
resignation from her post as special rapporteur, and by issuing
an immature and impetuous text ... she may have been promised a
new job positions," Iran's state news agency IRNA quoted him as
saying.
"Accordingly, some charges have been levelled against the
Islamic Republic of Iran without any valid evidence and
documents.”
In December, Khatibzadeh said an indictment would be issued in
less than a month against “those whose negligence caused the
accident”. But Iran's military court, which is handling the
case, has yet to publicly announce it.
(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; writing by Parisa
Hafezi; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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