Iran’s Judiciary has dismissed claims that the main suspect in the case of the Ukrainian plane crash has been released on bail.

According to The Iran Project,“One of the lawyers of the families of the victims of the Ukrainian plane crash claimed in an interview that the main suspect in this case has been released on bail,” the Media Center of the Judiciary said in a statement.

It made clear, however, that the suspect has been in custody since the case went on trial in early 2020.

On January 8, 2020, the Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, en route to Kiev and transporting mostly Iranians, crashed minutes after takeoff near the Iranian capital.

The plane was shot down by Iran’s air defenses, which mistook the aircraft for a military target amid tensions between Tehran and Washington following the US assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq days earlier.

Iran acknowledged days later that the mismanagement of an air defense unit’s radar system by its operator was the key human error that led to the accident.

In its statement, the Judiciary further explained that the main suspect has been handed 13 years in prison on charges of the manslaughter of the passengers of the Ukrainian flight as well as disregarding the communicated order, given the extent of the consequences of the incident.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Monday that Tehran will not tolerate the politicization of the case by some countries to exert pressure on the Islamic Republic.