Tehran, June 30, IRNA - Iranians will not forget cold-blood shot down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes on July 3, 1988, head of Iran?s Red Crescent Society Pir Hossein Kolivand said on Monday.
�Talking to IRNA, he noted that the American navy?s cold-blood shooting of Iranian passenger plane was a clear violation of the charter of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Kolivand criticized the then US administration of Ronald Reagan for awarding the navy?s captain and said that the US Navy perpetrated crime against humanity in 1988.


Awarding the captain proved that the US navy?s attack at Iranian passenger plane has been pre-meditated crime against humanity, he said.

Iran Air Flight 655 to Dubai was a passenger plane was shot down shortly after it took off from Tehran by the United States Navy over the Persian Gulf.

The attack took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran?s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the usual air corridor.

The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from the Vincennes killing all 290 passengers on board, including 66 children and 16 crew.

Special ceremony is held at the spot of the disaster every year in presence of familes of the victims.

Every year, helicopters shower flowers on the site where the bodies of the victims had scattered.

Washington encouraged Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in 1980 in a war which lasted eight years and killed one million from both sides.

The war of attrition inflicted several thousand billion dollars on Iranian economy whereas, the US and the western governments and the Saudi government extended several hundred billion assistance to the Saddam regime during the imposed war on Iran.

By IRNA

 

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