Somali airport workers were seen on a surveillance video handling a suspected laptop bomb and then passing it off to a passenger on a Daallo Airlines, which had a hole ripped in its cabin shortly after takeoff last week.
Airport officials said the video reveals that passenger Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh was given the laptop by what appeared to be two airport workers as he walked toward the departure hall of the airport, reported
Voice of America.
Borhel was killed by the blast on Flight 159, scheduled to land Djibouti with 74 passengers, but the aircraft stayed intact and returned to Mogadishu International Airport. Borleh was missing when the plane landed.
A photo of the damaged plane made it appear as if someone with a bomb was sitting by a window when the blast blew the person from the plane.
Survivor Hassan Mohamed Nur told the
Daily Mail that the blast happened five minutes after takeoff, but no one else was seriously injured.
"I saw the passenger, a man in his early 60s, get sucked out of the plane," Nur told the Daily Mail last week. "There was a huge bang. A big hole appeared in the side of the jet and the man disappeared through it. One minute he was sat in his seat, the next it he was gone. He'd been sucked out of the plane. People were screaming. We all thought we were going to die."
An unidentified senior intelligence official told Voice of America that a suspected bomb maker has been identified and may have ties with the terrorist group al-Shabab.
The FBI is assisting Somali officials in the bombing investigation, reported VOA. At least 11 people are being held in connection with the incident.