On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, operating between Tehran and Toronto, crashed shortly after takeoff, causing the death of 176 people. Among them, 85 were Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Iranian origin. Dozens of others joined Canada after a connection in Ukraine, notably to study there. Three days later, the authorities in Tehran admitted having shot down the plane ” by mistake “. Since then, Canada, whose Iranian diaspora is estimated at more than 210,000 people, has continued to demand, in vain, that Iran shed light on this tragedy and compensate the victims’ families.
The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, took advantage of a tribute ceremony organized Monday January 8, 2024 in Richmond Hill, in the northern suburbs of Toronto, to castigate the Tehran regime, which he accused “to ignore human rights in his country, and to participate in the destabilization of the world by continuing to support groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah”. Referring to the harshly repressed protest movement which followed the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, he told the “Iranian civilians who show immense courage in demanding freedom”, that ” Canada would always stand by their side.”
Qualifying the Iranian regime of “ murderer “, Justin Trudeau notably criticized the authorities for not taking responsibility for this air disaster caused by the firing of two missiles by the forces of the Islamic Republic, which was then on alert for fear of an American attack. He also took advantage of his intervention to announce that Canada, alongside Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom – which also had nationals on flight PS752 – had just filed a complaint with the the United Nations agency responsible for civil aviation (ICAO) against the Iranian regime for “its inability to refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against a civil aircraft in flight”.
141 investigations against Iranian officials
The same four countries had already, in July 2023, initiated proceedings against Iran before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Hamed Esmaeilion, member of the Association of Victims’ Families, welcomed this new initiative on Radio Canada. “For four years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been claiming that ICAO accepted its version, that they are on the same wavelength and that it was a human error. Now we will see that this is not true. ICAO will push Iran to tell the truth about what happened on January 8, 2020”he said.
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