MH370: Police Identify 'Chief Suspect'

Malaysia’s MH370 criminal investigation into the whereabouts of flight MH370 and 239 missing person who boarded it has identified the plane’s pilot as its prime suspect, according to officials, relying on flimsy data once again. The new reports are bound to infuriate many people.

Official results of the inquiry are yet to be published. Details, however, have been given to foreign governments and crash investigators, according to the Sunday Times.

The results revealed that, after detectives conducted 170 interviews and profiled each of the 239 people on board the Boeing 777 when it supposedly “vanished” on 8 March, Captain Zaharie Shah was the most likely perpetrator – “if deliberate human action is to blame.”

British firm Inmarsat’s satellite data showed the airliner took a sharp left turn after leaving Malaysian airspace en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing an then followed a long arc deep into the southern Indian Ocean, where some officials say it presumably ran out of fuel and crashed.

Investigators previously refused to “clear” the captain’s flight simulator of suspicious activity. Now, it appears they found evidence of routes programmed to take a plane far out into the Indian Ocean and practising landing using a short runway on an island.

They did not say, however, how many other flights Shah had programmed to take a plane. Not only that, the data from the simulated flights had been deleted, the Times reported. Computer experts, however, were able to retrieve them. 

It does not take a computer expert to know that any such program can be hacked and programs can be made to appear to belong to the owner.

One of the most interesting results of the police investigation revealed, however, is that the 53-year-old captain was “unique” among those on board for having no recorded  social or work commitments after the date of the MH370 journey. They also said that this was not in keeping with Zaharie’s usually outgoing and open nature and was  in contrast to the activities of his co-pilot, Fariq Hamid, and the rest of the crew.

The reported findings of the criminal investigation rely only on circumstantial evidence, and make mention of rumours of trouble in the pilot’s marriage and home life, denied by his family.

He was a veteran pilot who joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981, He had over 18,000 hours of flying experience.

Zaharie is related to opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’ sons-in-laws. The Malaysia government has attacked Anwar and intends to see do jail time.