I don’t know the DS9 deep lore yet, so forgive me if this is old news and/or contradicted in canon. The ship Garak talks about destroying in The Wire — it’s implied to be the Ravinok, right?
Mystery ship contained Cardassians + Bajorans + daughter of a prominent official (Ziyal)
Mystery ship was ordered to depart by Gul Dukat
At the time of The Wire, there were no known survivors of the Ravinok; wreckage wasn’t found until 2 seasons later in Indiscretion
The Central Command claims the Ravinok was destroyed by Bajorans making an escape attempt. Could be true. Could be a coverup for someone deliberately destroying the ship; lots of people/factions would be interested in taking out Ziyal.
Either way, it’s the official story. If some of those Bajorans were recently under interrogation, I imagine the blame would naturally fall on whoever let them go.
Now, admittedly there are multiple details that don’t fit the Ravinok, like the passenger count and the fact that Garak refers to the ship as a shuttle.
But hey, he’s got to lie about some stuff.
