Crash: Accident, not terrorism
2004-01-05 20:09
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt - All information obtained so far about the crash of a Paris-bound charter plane in the Red Sea points to an accident, with nothing to suggest a terrorist attack, France's ambassador to Egypt said on Monday.
"No element can lead to favoring or giving credit to the theory of a terrorist act," Jean-Claude Cousseran told reporters in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
"All the clues gathered until now are lead toward the thesis of an accident," he said as French planes and electronic equipment joined the Egyptian-led search for the plane that crashed before dawn on Saturday.
Some 148 people aboard the Boeing 737, most of them French tourists returning to France from a New Year's holiday, died in the crash which occurred minutes after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport.
Egyptian investigators said it may have been caused by some unspecified technical failure.
A man claiming to represent an Islamist group in Yemen said the plane was was brought down in an "attack" by his group called Ansar el-Haq, the Apostles of Truth, in an anonymous telephone call to AFP in Cairo.
It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the claim, while in Sanaa a government official denied the existence of the group in Yemen.
In Paris, French Justice Minister Dominique Perben told reporters he was "very cautious about the claim, which does not seem to be very credible."