Dakar rally car blast caused by improvised explosive device - source

SodiCars Racing no. 355 BUGGY PAM1 car driven by Philippe Boutron of France and Mayeul Barbet of France compete in the desert during Stage Seven of the 2019 Dakar Rally on January 14, 2019 San Juan de Marcona, Peru. [Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images]

An explosion under a support vehicle at the Dakar rally in Saudi Arabia that injured French race driver, Philippe Boutron, on 30 December was caused by an improvised explosive device, a French source familiar with the investigation said on Friday and Reuters reports.

Confirming a report by RTL radio, the source told Reuters that investigators had found traces of explosives on Boutron’s wrecked vehicle in Saudi Arabia.

French anti-terrorism prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation into the explosion in January.

French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has said that there were suspicions of a terrorist attack, but Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said, on 8 January, that an initial investigation into the blast had not raised any criminal suspicions.

A second explosion at the Dakar rally, under a truck belonging to the team of Camelia Liparoti on 31 December, is also under investigation by French police.

France: Dakar Rally explosion in Saudi Arabia could be terror attack

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.