A senior commander of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday he takes full responsibility for the Ukrainian airliner crash near Tehran that claimed the lives of all 176 people aboard.
"I take full responsibility and I will obey whatever decision is taken," Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said, as cited by Al Jazeera.
"I would prefer to die rather than witness such an incident," he added.
After initially denying reports that it had caused the crash of a Ukrainian airliner, Iran today admitted that it "unintentionally" shot down the plane.
Hajizadeh said that the plane was mistaken for a cruise missile, and was brought down using a short-range Iranian missile.