Investigators Ask Egyptian Leader to Prove Russian A321 Plane Bombing Claim

A Cairo-led international team investigating the October crash of a Russian A321 airliner in the Sinai desert asked the Egyptian president on Friday to prove that the plane was bombed, local media reported.

CAIRO (Sputnik) — Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Sisi said on Wednesday that the plane was brought down to hurt Russian-Egyptian ties. The investigators are wondering if their job has already been done for them, since Sisi appears to have sufficient evidence of terrorist involvement.

"In this case, the committee is asking qualified authorities to present detailed evidence so that we could close the technical investigation and hand the case over to the prosecutor general," a source in Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry, involved in the probe said, as cited by the El-Watan news website.

According to the outlet’s source, investigators are going to make a public statement on their progress in light of the president’s claim in the coming days. He said some of the international team members were receiving phone calls from their countries asking them to return home.

The A321 plane crashed shortly after leaving the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on October 31. All 224 people on board died in what has become the largest civil aviation disaster in Russian history. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the air tragedy was the result of a bomb planted on board.