Egypt today said it has not arrested any suspects in connection with the Russian plane crash, amid reports that the authorities are holding 17 people, including two airport employees, on suspicion of assisting those who planted the explosives on the ill-fated flight.
In a statement, Interior Ministry denied the reports of arresting Sharm el-Shiekh International Airport employees in connection with the bomb attack that brought down the Russian plane in Sinai last month, killing all 224 people on board.
Earlier, media reports said that 17 people are being held by Egyptian authorities and two of them are suspected of helping whoever planted the bomb on the Metrojet (Kogalymavia) Airbus A321 plane at Sharm al-Sheikh Airport.
The denial comes on a day when Russia said that its security services have concluded that the crash was caused by a home-made bomb containing explosives of "foreign production" with a force equivalent to 1.5 kg of TNT.
Russia's Federal Security Service announced a USD 50 million reward for information leading to arrest of the criminals.
A militant group affiliated to ISIS had claimed responsibility for the plane attack that killed all passengers, mostly Russian tourists over Sinai.
An investigation by media found that Sharm el-Sheikh airport had many gaps in security, such as lax searches at the entry gate and poor quality of scanning devices.
A 10-year-old CTX scanner at the airport wasn't working properly and only managed to scan a sample of the bags, not all of them.
