The explosion occurred two days before the start of the 2022 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia
The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Friday that preliminary investigations into the Dakar Rally accident did not show a “criminal suspicion”.
This comes after the French Foreign Minister announced that his government is studying the possibility of canceling the Dakar Rally, after what he said may have been a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia.
Jean-Yves Le Drian said his priority was to protect the lives of French citizens, who make up the majority of competitors in the annual event.
A French driver was seriously injured when his car exploded near Jeddah last week before the start of the rally.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry said, “The competent authority in the Kingdom is working to coordinate and inform specialists on the French side of the results of the investigation, photos, information and evidence available to the competent authorities in the Kingdom about the accident.”
“The Saudi anti-terror police are investigating the incident,” Le Drian told French radio.
For his part, Dakar Rally President David Castera ruled out ending the competition, telling France Info radio that “the question has not been raised so far”, and that the Saudi authorities “have taken sufficient safety measures to ensure the safety of the race.”
The Dakar Rally was moved from its traditional route across the Sahara desert in 2009 amid fears of attacks.
The rally has been taking place in Saudi Arabia since 2020.
“We thought maybe it would be better to abandon this sporting event,” Le Drian told BFM television. “The question is still open,” adding that “there was a possible terrorist attack against Dakar.”
French prosecutors said Tuesday that they had opened a terrorist investigation into the December 30 explosion in Jeddah, which seriously injured 61-year-old driver Philippe Butron before returning to France.
Butron’s son said on Thursday that his father had emerged from a coma, but that his legs were “seriously injured”.
Race organizers and Saudi authorities indicated that there was no criminal suspicion in the explosion, but France warned its citizens in Saudi Arabia and asked them to exercise “the utmost vigilance of security risks” in the wake of the explosion.
“The possibility of a criminal act has not been ruled out,” the ministry said in updated guidelines on its website.
The famous race, formerly known as Paris Dakar, but is currently called only Dakar, set off from the French capital on the way to the Senegalese capital, Dakar.
But security threats along its course in North Africa mean that from 2009 it has been held in South America and 2020 in Saudi Arabia.