An Egyptian publishing house has distanced itself from the terrorist attacks targeting US landmarks on September 11, in the wake of suspicions aroused by a calender it issued earlier showing a fictitious image of a plane exploding near the Statute of Liberty, reported the official Kuwaiti news agency (KUNA).
Safir Publishing and Advertisement House said in a statement that the calendar, issued in 2001, made reference to the crash of an Egyptian aircraft in October 1999, and was not related to any later events.
The agency said that the Dutch intelligence service, in the current European sweep of suspected terrorists' hideouts, found the calendar, bearing the picture with the expression, "On His Almighty God I depend," with New York and the statute appearing in the background.
The phrase was allegedly uttered when the first officer of the doomed flight, Gamil Batouti, “committed suicide,” as claimed by US investigators into the incident.
The Egyptian government and people rejected the US report, with some insisting that the plane was downed by a rocket, and officials attributing the crash to a mechanical problem.
The publishing house said that an Israeli information center in the Netherlands had played a role in making the "senseless" link between the calendar and the terrorist attacks – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
