New report on destruction of Flight PS752 accuses Iran of using civilian passengers as human shields

A new report on the destruction of Flight PS752 drafted by the victims' families claims the government of Iran deliberately kept its airspace open to use civilian air passengers as human shields against a possible American attack.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight shortly after takeoff in Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. Two surface-to-air missiles hit the plane, killing all 176 passengers onboard — including 55 Canadian citizens, 30 permanent residents and others with ties to Canada.

Unsatisfied with the lack of answers from the various governments involved, including Canada's, families of the victims said they spent 17 months doing their own detective work. They say they conducted their own fact-finding mission — obtaining audio recordings of top Iranian officials, testing victims' phones from the crash site and consulting with military and air defence experts.

Hamed Esmaeilion, president of the association representing families of flight PS752 victims, said while they are grateful for the work governments have done, they are frustrated by the "limited progress achieved to date" on obtaining justice from Iran.

"Governments like that of Canada's have produced several reports in respect of Flight PS752, but they are limited in nature," wrote Esmaeilion, whose wife and daughter died on the plane.

In their 200-page report, the families say they believe the plane was shot down intentionally and that high-ranking Iranian officials were responsible — not just a handful of low-ranking IRGC members, as Iran has claimed.

"Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims believes that Flight PS752 was not shot down as a result of a human error of one operator, nor was it a consequence of multiple errors in the defence system as claimed by Iran," says the report.

The report points to Iran's decision to keep the airspace open on Jan. 8 after Iran's forces had fired missiles at Iraqi bases where U.S. troops were stationed. The attack was in retaliation for an American drone strike that killed a high-ranking Iranian military general in Iraq.

"At the highest levels of military alertness, the government of Iran used passenger flights as human shield against possible American attacks by deliberately not closing the airspace to civilian flights," says the report.

The report also cites multiple experts who have said the missile system and defence network used by the IRGC couldn't have mistaken the passenger plane for a hostile target, and that it wasn't possible for the missile system to have been left facing the wrong way, as Iran has claimed.

"...the destruction of existing evidence, and Iran's misleading reports, all indicate that the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 was deliberate," the report says.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly — alongside foreign ministers representing Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom — released a joint statement today expressing "deep disappointment that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not accepted our multiple requests to meet on Nov. 22 to negotiate the matter of reparations for the downing of Flight PS752."

Canada's official forensic examination of the crash, meanwhile, concluded that the government did not have evidence of its own proving the catastrophe was "premeditated."

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra told CBC News the families' report seems to agree with many of the facts in the forensic report but arrives at a "different interpretation."