Egypt Dismisses Reports of Sharm el-Sheikh Airport Employees Being Detained

According to Egypt's Youm7 newspaper, the country's Interior Ministry denied reports that any of the Sharm el-Sheikh airport employees were detained.

CAIRO (Sputnik) — Egypt's Interior Ministry dismissed media reports on Tuesday that employees of the Sharm el-Sheikh airport were allegedly detained on suspicion of involvement in the Russian plane attack, Egypt's Youm7 newspaper reported.

A Russian Airbus A321 with 224 people on board crashed on October 31 while en route from Egypt’s resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, leaving no survivors. Russia officially concluded the crash was a terrorist act due to an explosion of a homemade explosive device on board.

Earlier in the day, Reuters reported, citing local security sources, that 17 people were being held, two of whom were suspected of helping to plant a bomb on board the Russian airliner.

Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation also denied media reports on the alleged arrests in the Red Sea resort's airport, urging local media to verify any information before publishing it.

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Moscow was not alerted about two Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport employees complicit in the Russian A321 crash.