French Ministry of Defence says three of the dead were Defence officials

The Malta government continues to insist that the people on board the crashed-and-burned plane were French customs officials. But French Customs has tweeted a denial and France’s Ministry of Defence has said clearly that three of the people on board were its own officials (the other two were the pilot and first officer).

Despite the denial from the French Douane, and the fact that France’s Ministry of Defence has said that the dead are Defence officials, Prime Minister Muscat stood up in parliament an hour ago and repeated that the dead were French customs officers.

He also said that the flight destination was not Misurata or anywhere else in Libya, that it was going to be a “local flight”, which means that it wasn’t meant to leave Malta’s airspace. “You can check that in the airport records,” he said.