Malaysia suspected murder flight plot

Najib Razak has backed Tony Abbott’s revelations over his government’s suspicions over the pilot’s role in MH370.

Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak. Picture: AFP

Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak has said his government “never ruled out” the possibility that Malaysian Airlines MH370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was behind the plane’s disappearance, but did not go public with its suspicions because it could not prove them.

His comments support revelations by Tony Abbott this week that the most senior figures in the Malaysian government when MH370 disappeared suspected murder-suicide by pilot.

“This possible scenario was never ruled out during the search effort and investigations,” Mr Najib told the Free Malaysia Today news site on Wednesday.

He said the suspicions were never made public because it would have been “irresponsible since the black box and cockpit recorder had not been found”.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 had 239 people aboard when it fell off the radar screen 40 minutes into its scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to ­Beijing on March 8, 2014.

In a two-part Sky News documentary this week on the MH370 disappearance, Mr Abbot­t revealed that as then Australian prime minister he was told by “the very top levels of the Malaysian government … that from very, very early on they thought it was murder-suicid­e by the pilot”.

“It was crystal clear to me they had a very clear understanding that this almost certainly was what had happened,” he said.

Tony Abbott appears on the Sky News documentary on the MH370 disappearance. Picture: Sky News

Those comments prompted one of the current Malaysian government’s most senior figures­, Lim Kit Siang, to call for an international inquiry into the plane’s disappearance.

Mr Lim, founder and head of the Democratic Action Party — one of four parties in Malaysia’s ruling Pakatan Harapan ­coalition — also called on former Najib government members to reveal what they know about MH370.

“The highest levels of the former Malaysian government who believed from very early on that the MH370 tragedy was a ­murder-suicide plot must now speak up,” he said.

“It would appear an inter­national commission of inquiry into the MH370 disappearance would be necessary as a result of ­Abbott’s revelations.”

Mr Najib, who is facing trial on 42 charges of corruption and abuse of office related to the multi-billion-dollar 1MDB misappropriation scandal, said ­suspicion fell on Zaharie ­because the plane’s transponders were switched off just as it was about to enter Vietnam air space.

“This suggests that whoever was responsible had knowledge of commercial flights,” he said.

He also referred to Zaharie’s links to the then political opposition and the fact he was distantly related by marriage to prime minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim.

The plane went missing a day after Anwar was sentenced to what was widely seen as a second politically motivated jail term for sodomy, and Zaharie was widely reported to have attended the hearing.

An investigation by the Malaysian government concluded there was no evidence Zaharie had hijacked his own aircraft.

The report described Zaharie as a model pilot and well-adjusted individual who had no financial or personal problems, though it was later revealed he had marital problems and had developed a close relationship with a younger woman.

Malaysian police Inspector-General Abdul Hamid Bador, a former MH370 investigator, said there was no evidence to support the theory that the pilot of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 committed murder-suicide, and such claims could not be verified unless the plane was found.

“I do not know who is the Malaysian official Abbott was referring to, but I was among those involved in the investigation,” he said on Wednesday.

“We investigated all angles, from terrorism to hijack by certain parties.

“There were various theories that involved the use of sophisticated technology and a lot of facts were gathered.”

Additional reporting: Selvanaban Mariappen