Mubarak credited for persuading Clinton to delay probe of Flight 990

CAIRO [MENL] -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak obtained a pledge from President Bill Clinton to delay an investigation of the Oct. 31 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, an Egyptian minister said on Monday.

Addressing parliament, Egyptian Transportation Minister Ibrahim Dumeiri said Mubarak appealed to Clinton to block a move by the National Transportation Safety Board to hand over the investigation of the crash to the FBI. The handover would have meant that the crash was deemed as criminal.

Dumeiri said Clinton told Mubarak that the NTSB would delay any move to relay the investigation to the FBI. Mubarak was said to fear repercussion from a U.S. determination that the Boeing 767 was downed by a suicide copilot.

In Washington, U.S. officials acknowledged that Egyptian officials appealed for a delay in the FBI control of the investigation. But they said Clinton was not involved and the two men did not communicate on the issue.

The minister also accused Boeing of trying to influence the investigation. He said that a failure of the passenger jet would open the manufacturer to hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits.

Egyptian sources said the transcript of the flight is expected to be released within the next 24 hours after Egyptian investigators reviewed the tape several times in Washington. The sources said after initial delays the United States is determined to release the transcript of the flight data recorder and relay the investigation to the FBI.

But the sources said Egypt is pressing for more investigators to arrive from Cairo to examine the data recorder. Two Egyptian teams of investigators have already examined the flight recorders.

Earlier, Egypt's ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, said his country is increasing cooperation with Washington. "Even though there has been this widespread anger within Egypt, the government of Egypt is determined to cooperate with the United States and let the U.S. continue to take the lead," Fahmy told CNN. "We've intensified our cooperation now and we are working together well."

Egyptian officials said many of the words attributed to co-pilot Gamil Batouti, suspected of downing the plane, were incorrect. Batouti was earlier reported to have said, "I have made my decision now" before disengaging the autopilot.

"If this accusation [of a suicide crash] were proven, it would mean that EgyptAir bears the responsibility for what happened to the plane, thereby exonerating the other two parties, Boeing, the plane's manufacturer, and the U.S. authorities, responsible for securities measures,'' the Al Ahram newspaper said.

In Washington, however, Newsweek magazine said in a report published on Monday that Batouti uttered the Islamic oath "I put my trust in God" as many as 14 times as he sent the Boeing 767 into a fatal nose-dive. The magazine said U.S. investigators are convinced that Batouti was responsible for taking his own life and the lives of 216 others in the Oct. 31 crash.

"The frequency and the way the invocation was made did not indicate that he was using it as part of everyday speech," Newsweek quoted a senior law enforcement official as saying.

The U.S. weekly said a team of Egyptian technical experts and security officials sent over to examine the evidence initially agreed with the suicide theory until they were overruled by their higher-ups in Cairo last week. A second, more senior team of Egyptian officials, led by an Air Force general who is close to President Hosni Mubarak, was dispatched to Washington.

Newsweek said the Egyptians were seeking to "stonewall and obstruct" the probe.

On Monday, the London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat daily quoted "reliable sources" as saying Batouti uttered the Islamic oath eight times. The newspaper said Batouti said the words calmly.

The sources said the transcript of the flight data recorder would be released on Monday.