Members of Toronto’s Iranian community say they’re saddened and angry, but not surprised, by Iran’s admission it accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jet over Tehran, killing all 176 on the plane, including 57 Canadians.

After sharp denials that it wasn’t responsible for this week’s crash of the airliner, senior Iranian officials later apologized for the “mistake” that occurred hours after Iran launched missiles against military bases in Iraq in retaliation against the U.S. for killing a top Iranian general.

Here in Toronto, Iranian Canadians said Tehran’s admission it downed a passenger jet carrying scores of Iranians and Canadians confirmed what they had already suspected.

“From the first day everybody knew this couldn’t be an accident,” said Carlo Zadeh, 65, the owner of the popular Arzon Supermarket in North York’s “Little Persia” near Yonge St. and Steeles Ave. “All of a sudden an airplane disappears from the radar. It meant a bomb or a missile. Everybody knew that,” he said.

“This is a regime with a bad reputation. They are liars, lying to their own people,” he said, referring to Iran’s initial denial.

After initially denying claims a missile had taken down the plane, Iranian officials had to walk back their denials in the face of overwhelming evidence — including video of a missile hitting an object in the night sky over Tehran and the subsequent explosion of the plane on the ground.

Zadeh said several of the victims of the crash were customers of his North York grocery, a fact he discovered after recognizing their faces in media accounts of the crash.

“I’m very very sad. When I looked at the pictures of the victims I was crying,” said Zadeh, who was born in Iran and came to Toronto 30 years ago.

The tragedy has left the community confused and reeling.

Mohamad Yaghoubi, 41, owner of Jasmin Sandwich, also accused the Iranian regime of “lying” and giving the world inaccurate information about the cause of the crash.

Habib Nadem, 48, the manager of Khorak Supermarket in North York, said he was “sure in his heart” immediately that the Ukranian jetliner had been shot down. “They made a mistake and it caused nearly 200 people to die,” he said.

He called the accident a “very bad” chapter for Iran and its people and wondered how it will play out in Iran given the huge outpouring of grief and waves of anger over the U.S. killing of Soleimani, the general.

“When the general got killed, over four million people came on the street (in Iran) because he was assassinated. This time nearly 200 got killed. The people in Iran should go on the street calling for the government to give an answer,” says Nadem, who with seven other siblings and his parents came to Canada in 1991 from Iran fleeing turmoil there.

On Saturday night, hundreds did, in fact, gather at universities in Tehran to protest the government’s late acknowledgement of the plane being shot down. They demanded officials involved in the missile attack be removed from their positions and tried.

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Police broke up the demonstrations.

Bahman Nasiri, president of the Iranian Canadian Association of Entrepreneurs, called the crash and circumstances around it a “major disaster” that has left the Iranian community “very depressed.”

With files from Associated Press

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