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France considers cancelling Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia after ‘terrorist assault’
Mustafa Abu Sneineh
Fri, 01/07/2022 – 11:25
France is contemplating cancelling the 2022 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia after the European nation’s overseas minister mentioned the dominion ought to have been clear about an explosion on the racing occasion final week, which French investigators are at present treating as a “terrorist assault.”
Two days earlier than the motorsport occasion launched in Saudi Arabia on 1 January, a automobile carrying six passengers from the Sodicars Racing crew exploded exterior the Donatello lodge within the coastal metropolis of Jeddah.
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The French rally driver and competitor Philippe Boutron, 61, was severely injured within the occasion.
In response to Sodicars Racing, Boutron’s legs have been “burnt and torn”, and so they have been involved about medical doctors amputating each legs to avoid wasting his life. He’s being handled at a army hospital close to Paris, the place he has simply emerged from a medically induced coma.
The opposite passengers weren’t harm. Richard Gonzalez, chairman of Sodicars Racing, mentioned that an explosive machine was underneath the automobile.
“I noticed every little thing. It was a deliberate act; there isn’t any doubt about it,” Gonzalez mentioned.
On Friday, French overseas minister Jean-Yves Le Drian mentioned that they had informed the organisers of Dakar Rally and Saudi officers to be “very clear on what had occurred as a result of there have been speculation that it was a terrorist assault.”
He added that France is contemplating cancelling subsequent yr’s Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia, which was moved to the Arabian peninsula in 2020, prompting accusations of sportswashing.
“We thought that maybe it was higher to droop this sporting occasion,” Le Drian mentioned on Friday, of this yr’s race, which is ongoing. “However the organisers thought not… The query continues to be on the desk.”
Accusations of a cover-up
French prosecutors opened an investigation into the explosion on Tuesday.
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France’s secret providers have been tasked with scrutinising claims of an tried “cover-up” to keep away from embarrassment by Saudi authorities, the Occasions newspaper reported.
Saudi Arabia’s public safety division mentioned on 1 January that “preliminary evidence-gathering procedures discovered no prison suspicion.”
The Dakar Rally has been plagued with difficulties because it first launched in 1978, initially working between Paris and the Senegalese capital Dakar.
The occasion was cancelled in 2008, following safety threats within the Sahel area. It was moved to South America from 2009 to 2019. Regardless of criticism from public figures of Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, the competitors was moved to the dominion in 2020.
Human Rights Watch has described Saudi Arabia’s internet hosting of the Dakar Rally, which runs till 14 January, as a part of an try by de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to whitewash the dominion’s “abusive rights popularity utilizing large-scale occasions, with extremely managed environments, to point out a progressive face of the dominion.”
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