In Iran, detentions began as part of the investigation into the crash of the passenger Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Boeing 737-800, which was mistakenly shot down by the Islamic Republic’s air defense forces.

According to the official representative of the Supreme Court of Iran, Golyam Hossein Esmayili, the commission for the investigation of the catastrophe was formed at the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran. According to him, the first report has already been submitted.

“A thorough investigation has been carried out and some individuals have already been arrested,” Esmaily said.

However, the President of the Islamic Republic, Hassan Rouhani, during a television appeal, indicated that all those responsible for the incident should be punished.

“In this case, it is very important for our people that anyone who is guilty or negligent at any level faces justice,” said Rouhani in a televised address quoted from The New Arab.

According to him, a separate judicial structure should be created to consider the circumstances of the case of a downed plane.

“Everyone who should be punished should be punished. The judicial system should form a special court with the participation of a senior judge and dozens of experts ... The whole world will monitor the process, ”the Iranian president emphasized.

Recall, on Wednesday, January 8, at 2:42 UTC (5:42 Moscow time), PSA2 Tehran-Kiev “Ukraine International Airlines” (UIA) flew from Imam Khomeini International Airport. Onboard there were 167 passengers and nine crew members. Two minutes later, data from the airliner ceased to arrive.

First, information appeared that the plane crash allegedly occurred due to “engine fire due to a technical malfunction”. As noted in the preliminary report of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization, published on January 9, the airliner caught fire in the air, and the pilots did not report an emergency on board.

A day later, the authorities of Western countries - Canada, Britain and the United States - with reference to intelligence began to report that the Boeing 737-800 could have been shot down by an Iranian ground-to-air missile. At the same time, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) called for "refraining from any speculation about the causes of this tragedy until the end of the investigation."

Already on January 11, Iranian authorities, during an internal investigation of the Armed Forces, found out that a missile launched due to a human error led to a plane crash. The Islamic Guards Corps took full responsibility for the tragedy. According to Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizade, Commander of the Space Forces of the IRGC, the air defense system identified the aircraft as a “cruise missile”.

“Civil aviation has not yet been notified that the cause was a rocket, so they did not have information about it. I found out about this on Wednesday morning. A group of the General Staff of the Armed Forces was formed to investigate the incident, and those who were informed about this were isolated, and we were forbidden to tell anything, ”Hajizade explained, commenting on the delay in disclosing the reasons for the tragedy.

Iranian air defense forces were put on high alert due to threats from US President Donald Trump to strike at 52 targets in the country.

Recall that the plane crash occurred on the morning of January 8, shortly after Iran conducted an operation called the “Martyr Suleymani”. The armed forces of Iran launched a series of missile attacks on US military facilities in neighboring Iraq. In this way, Tehran reacted to the airstrike of the US military, as a result of which KISIR General Kassem Suleimani was killed.

According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the assassination of the Iranian military commander “goes beyond all international legal and just human boundaries” and is the “culmination of unlawful actions” of Washington. On January 14, Tehran announced its intention to hold the US authorities and military accountable in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for the murder of Suleimani.

Meanwhile, the president of Ukraine’s International Airlines, Yevhen Dykhne, blamed the crash on the Iranian authorities because they did not close their airspace.

“They violated their international agreements, did not fulfill the main function - they did not provide security. We provided, but they didn’t, ”he said in an interview with Left Bank.