Russian Plane Crash Referred To Egyptian Prosecutor

Egypt's Public Prosecutor has referred the case of the Russian airliner that crashed in Sinai last year to State Security prosecutors to look into suspicions that criminal activity brought it down.

The Egyptian-led committee investigating the crash, in which all 224 people aboard were killed, said last month it had sent the case to the public prosecutor after a Russian investigation raised suspicion of criminal activity.

Moscow stopped all civilian flights to Egypt, a popular destination for Russian tourists, after the plane crashed in Sinai on October 31. Russia has long said a bomb destroyed the airliner.

Islamic State, whose Egyptian affiliate is waging an insurgency in the Sinai, immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and later said it smuggled the explosive aboard in a soft drink can.

But Egyptian officials did not acknowledge evidence of foul play until February, when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a televised speech that terrorists had brought down the plane to hurt tourism and relations with Russia.

An official Egyptian confirmation that a bomb brought down the Airbus A321 could expose Egypt to compensation payments to the families of the victims, most of them tourists in search of winter sun.

Islamic State's online magazine carried a photo of a Schweppes soft drink can it said was used to make an improvised bomb that blew the airliner out of the sky.

An EgyptAir mechanic whose cousin joined Islamic State in Syria is suspected of planting the bomb, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in January.

A senior security official at the airline denied that any of its employees had been arrested or were under suspicion, and an Interior Ministry official also said there had been no arrests.