Senior Judiciary Official: US Seeking to Take Revenge for Failures in Iran

Iran’s Prosecutor-General and Judiciary Spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeii said that the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by the US in July 2, 1988 was a sinister move by Washington to take revenge from the Iranian nation for its failures.

Speaking to reporters here in Tehran on Monday, Ejeii pointed to the US warship’s attack on an Iranian passenger plane in the Persian Gulf in 1988, and said, “We consider the incident as a historical stain of shame on the forehead of those countries claiming to be an advocate of democracy, and this stain will remain on the US forehead forever.”

“Such US moves are done to take revenge from the Iranian nation, because the Iranian nation shattered the US awe and for that reason Washington wants to take revenge from the dear nation of Iran,” the spokesman stated.

At the height of the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf blew up Iranian airliner 655, killing all 290 citizens on board, including nearly 70 children.

Iranian Airbus A300 plane was making a routine flight from the country’s southern port city of Bandar Abbas, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes launched two surface-to-air missiles, downing Iran Air Flight 655.

The American officials later claimed that the USS Vincennes had mistaken the Iranian passenger plane for an F-14 fighter. The claim was later proved to be unfounded by more evidence.

The then US President, Ronald Reagan, praised the act of the USS Vincennes, but said in a different interview that the American missile cruiser mistakenly shot the Iranian passenger plane.

Although Iran filed against the US in the United Nations and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), both bodies adopted a politicized attitude and declined to follow up the case legally, they only bothered to sympathize with the bereaved families of the victims.