Chilling final tweet of Toronto PhD student on doomed Iran plane: I predicted war would start just before my flight

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Luke O'Reilly9 January 2020

A chilling final tweet has emerged of a Toronto PhD student posted just minutes before the plane he was on crashed in Iran

Mojtaba Abbasnezhad died after his plane crashed minutes after taking off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran at 6.10am local time on Wednesday.

On a Twitter account purporting to belong to the student he wrote: "I predicted that the war would start right before my flight.

"Forgive me for my good and bad deeds."

The Ukraine International Airline's flight, bound for the nation's capital Kiev, contained 167 passengers and nine crew members, none of whom are believed to have survived.

Mr Abbasnezhad was named by the airline as one of the flight's passengers.

The tweet was highlighted by journalist Negar Mortazavi, who provided the translation from the original Persian.

The University of Toronto paid tribute to Mr Abbasnezhad, along with a number of other student victims of the crash, on its website.

A statement from the University of Toronto said: "We have learned, with profound sorrow, that several U of T students were among the 176 people killed in the crash of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 in Tehran, Iran.

"On behalf of the entire University of Toronto community, I want to say how deeply saddened we are, and how concerned we are for the families and friends of those who lost their lives. We are continuing to gather information, and taking care to respect the privacy and wishes of all involved.

"Many members of our university – and many across the GTA and Canada – have been directly affected by this tragedy.

"We are all heartbroken."

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