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Russian crashes 'terrorism'
26/08/2004 23:37 - (SA)
Moscow - An official close to Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the probe into the almost-simultaneous crashes of two planes regarded a terrorist attack as the leading hypothesis, reported Itar-Tass news agency.
In a brief dispatch, Itar-Tass quoted Vladimir Yakovlev, Putin's representative in southern Russia, as saying that "a terrorist act remains" the main version of events being looked at by investigators.
According to the dispatch, only the words "a terrorist act remains" were directly attributed to Yakovlev.
It was the Itar-Tass report itself - not Yakovlev - that described the terrorism theory as "the main version" being studied.
So far, Russian officials across the board have carefully avoided saying the possibility of terrorism was any more likely than any of the other possible explanations for the crashes, including bad weather, pilot error and contaminated fuel.
The authorities, however, were hammered in Russia's printed media on Thursday for failing to acknowledge the planes were, according to the newspapers, brought down by terrorists.
A spokesperson for Russia's FSB intelligence service said on Wednesday that investigators had so far found no evidence of terrorist involvement in the crashes.
- AFP
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