The official, identified by CBC sources as Zarif, said that there are a "thousand possibilities" to explain the jet downing, including the distinct possibility of a premeditated attack by infiltrators, the report said based on a recording provided by unnamed sources on Tuesday.
"Even if you assume that it was an organized intentional act, they would never tell us or anyone else," the alleged official said in Farsi as quoted and translated by the CBC. "There would have been two to three people who did this. And it's not at all unlikely. They could have been infiltrators. There are a thousand possibilities. Maybe it was really because of the war and it was the radar."
The alleged official also said that the Iranian government is unlikely to ever disclose the truth concerning the downing of flight PS752, the report said.
"There are reasons that they will never be revealed," the alleged official said. "They won't tell us, nor anyone else, because if they do it will open some doors into the defense systems of the country that will not be in the interest of the nation to publicly say."
Canada’s former top diplomat, Francois-Philippe Champagne, previously stated that he does not believe the downing of the jet was caused by human error.
Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran in January 2020 after being shot down by the Iranian military. The passengers were mostly Canadian and Iranian nationals and nine Ukrainian crew members.
The Iranian military said it was on high alert at the time of the accident, which happened hours after it fired missiles at two US bases in Iraq in retaliation for the drone strike that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
