PARIS (Reuters) – The first results of the investigation into the explosion of a vehicle on December 30 on the Dakar 2022 car rally-raid in Saudi Arabia, in which there were five French people, do not reveal the track of a criminal act, the Saudi Arabian foreign ministry said on Friday.
The kingdom is in contact with the French authorities to share any information relating to this incident, the ministry added in a statement.
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, did not rule out that this explosion of an assistance car was a terrorist attack.
“There have already been terrorist acts in Saudi Arabia against French interests,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday morning on BFM TV.
The head of French diplomacy wished for greater transparency from the Saudi authorities on the explosion, adding that French investigators would go there.
The national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office (Pnat) announced on Tuesday the opening of an investigation in France into the incident in Jeddah. The driver of the vehicle, Philippe Boutron, sustained serious injuries to his legs.
(Report John Irish and Nicolas Delame, with Alaa Swilam, written by Matthieu Protard and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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