An Iranian general said officials lied about shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet to defend national security

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An Iranian general said officials lied about shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet to defend national security
Part of the wreckage from Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, a Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport
  • Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, sought to justify lying about whether Iran shot down Ukraine International Airlines flight 752.
  • In a TV address Wednesday, he said had Iran immediately told the truth, its air defense network would have been left "crippled."
  • A Revolutionary Guard Corps missile shot down flight 752 on January 8. It took until January 11 for Iran to admit what really happened.
  • At first, Iranian officials apologized unreservedly for the crash. But in the days since, some have sought to justify the action, or shift the blame.
  • Visit Business Insider's home page for more stories.

An Iranian general defended his government's decision to lie for days about whether it shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing 176 people.

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General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, whose troops oversaw the missile system that shot down Ukraine International Airlines flight 752, said that Iran covered it up to defend national security.

He made the statement in a television address on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Hajizadeh said that Iran denied the shoot-down "for the betterment of our country's security, because if we had said this, our air defense system would have become crippled and our guys would have had doubted everything."

General Amir Ali Hajizadeh Iran Revolutionary Guard

He appears to have meant that Iranian missile defense would have been compromised by a lack of confidence in itself after making such a catastrophic error, rather than any technical fault to stop their equipment working.

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Hajizadeh is part of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful paramilitary force which answers directly to the country's supreme leader and is considered more hardline than its elected government.

His remarks are a significant turnaround from four days ago, when he said publicly that he felt such shame over the shootdown that "I wish I could die."

It was a Revolutionary Guard missile system which fired at flight 752, a Boeing 737-800, minutes after it took off in the early hours of January 8.

Iran insisted for three days that the crash was due to a mechanical fault. On the fourth day, Iranian officials admitted shooting the plane down.

Political and military leaders apologized unreservedly, promised to prosecute those involved, and insisted that the shootdown was a mistake.

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Iran Ukranian air crash

Officials said that soldiers mistook the plane for an enemy cruise missile in the confused aftermath of an Iranian bombardment of US troops stationed at a military base in Iraq.

However, in the days since Iran admitted to the shootdown, some military leaders have started to row back on the absolute admission of guilt from the government.

On Tuesday, the deputy head of Iran's Armed Forces General Staff gave an interview in which he appeared to suggest that the US could have hacked Iran's weapons systems at the time of the crash.

According to a translation by Kian Sharifi of the BBC Monitoring service, General Sardar Abdullahi raised the prospect of "electronic warfare" having played a part in the shootdown.

Iran Ukraine plane crash candlelit vigil Tehran

According to the AP, the crash has also exposed gaps between Iran's government and the Revolutionary Guard.

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AP reported that Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, said that he and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani only found out that the plane crash was due to Iranian missiles on Friday January 10, two days after the attack.

The Revolutionary Guard would have known straight away, raising the possibility that they hid the truth from their own government until after Western governments began publicly describing it as a missile strike.

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