CANBERRA: The Australian government minister in charge of the suspended seabed search for the Malaysia Airlines jet joined victims’ families and friends on Wednesday in the east coast city of Brisbane for a memorial service to mark the third anniversary of Flight 370’s disappearance.
Darren Chester, minister for infrastructure and transport, and Angus Houston, the former Australian defense chief who coordinated the early months of the search efforts, were among around 100 who attended the private ceremony at St. John’s Anglican Cathedral.
Several victims and relatives of the 239 passengers and crew aboard the Boeing 777 live in or near Brisbane.
Chester said before the service that he understood the frustration that many would feel on the anniversary of the tragedy that there was no longer an active search for the crash site.
Australia, Malaysia and China in January suspended the sonar search for the airliner after a sweep of 120,000 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia failed to find any trace. The airliner for unknown reasons flew far off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
“I understand that the families and friends have a level of frustration and disappointment that despite the enormous search effort, we haven’t been able to locate MH370,” Chester said.
“It’s important to hold this service to remember those who are missing: the seven Australian citizens and residents along with the 232 others who were on board from 14 countries around the world,” he said.
“Not knowing their final resting place is a traumatizing experience for the families and friends and after three years and so many unanswered questions, I think it’s important that we have this service. It will be a sad day for many, but it will also be a chance to celebrate the lives of those who are missing,” he said.
Chester declined to comment on a suggestion by some relatives of raising funds to continue a private search of the ocean floor.
“I’m not going to offer advice to those who want to fund-raise privately to extend the search, but from the Australians government’s perspective, the search remains suspended,” Chester said.
Australia’s prime minister at the time of the tragedy, Tony Abbott, said in a newspaper interview last month that areas north and south of the searched zone should also be examined.
“When you’ve got nearly 240 people missing, the greatest mystery of modern times, as long as there is any reasonable prospective place to search, you just keep searching,” Abbott told New Corp. Australia.
Abbott, who remains a government lawmaker, said “the most plausible scenario” was that a pilot had deliberately crashed the plane. A pilot could have flown the plane further south than the area searched, Abbott said. Abbott had not responded by Wednesday to a request for comment.
A lawsuit filed in the US on behalf of the families of 44 people on board Flight 370 alleges a series of catastrophic electrical and other failures may have led to the crash.
The lawsuit, filed Friday against Boeing in US District Court in South Carolina, names seven malfunctions, from an electrical fire to depressurization of the plane’s cabin, that could have led to the crew losing consciousness, the plane’s transponder stopping its transmission and the plane flying undetected until it crashed after running out of fuel.
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Australian service marks third anniversary of MH370 tragedy
Australian service marks third anniversary of MH370 tragedy
Palestinian protester, detained for nearly a year, says ‘inhumane’ jail conditions prompted seizure
A Palestinian woman who has been held in an immigration jail for nearly a year after she attended a protest in New York City said she suffered a seizure after fainting and hitting her head last week, an episode she linked to “filthy” and “inhumane” conditions inside the privately run detention facility.
Leqaa Kordia, 33, was hospitalized for three days following the seizure, which she said was the first of her life. She has since returned to the Prairieland Detention Facility in Texas, where she has been held since March.
In a statement released through her lawyers on Thursday, Kordia said she was shackled the entire time she was hospitalized and prevented from calling family or meeting with her lawyers.
“For three days in the emergency room, my hands and legs were weighed down by heavy chains as they drew my blood and gave me medications,” Kordia said. “I felt like an animal. My hands are still full of marks from the heavy metal.”
Her doctors, she said, told her the seizure may have been the result of poor sleep, inadequate nutrition and stress. Her lawyers previously warned that Kordia, a devout Muslim, had lost 49 pounds (22 kilograms) and fainted in the shower, in part because the jail had denied her meals that comply with religious requirements.
“I’ve been here for 11 months, and the food is so bad it makes me sick,” the statement continued. “At Prairieland, your daily life — whether you can have access to the food or medicine you need or even a good night’s sleep — is controlled by the private, for-profit business that runs this facility.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but said in a statement to The New York Times that Kordia wasn’t being mistreated and was receiving proper medical care.
A resident of New Jersey who grew up in the West Bank, Kordia was among around 100 people arrested outside Columbia University during protests at the school in 2024.
The charges against her were dismissed and sealed. But information about her arrest was later given to the Trump administration by the New York City police department, which said it was told the records were needed as part of a money laundering investigation.
Last year, Kordia was among the first pro-Palestinian protesters arrested in the Trump administration’s crackdown on noncitizens who had criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza. She is the only one who remains jailed.
She has not been accused of a crime and has twice been ordered released on bond by an immigration judge. The government has challenged both rulings, an unusual step in cases that don’t involve serious crimes, which triggers a lengthy appeals process.
Kordia was taken into custody during a March 13 check-in with US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. At the time, federal officials touted her arrest as part of the sweeping crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activists, pointing to her 2024 arrest outside of Columbia as proof of “pro-Hamas” activities.
Kordia said she joined the demonstration after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza, where she maintains deep personal ties. “My way of helping my family and my people was to go to the streets,” she told The Associated Press in October.
Federal officials have accused Kordia of overstaying her visa, while casting scrutiny on payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East. Kordia said the money was meant to help family members whose homes were destroyed in the war or were otherwise suffering.
An immigration judge later found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the payments. Attorneys for Kordia say she was previously in the US on a student visa, but mistakenly surrendered that status after applying to remain in the country as the relative of a US citizen.
In her statement on Thursday, Kordia said the detention facility was “built to break people and destroy their health and hope.”
“The best medicine for me and everyone else here is our freedom,” she added.
Leqaa Kordia, 33, was hospitalized for three days following the seizure, which she said was the first of her life. She has since returned to the Prairieland Detention Facility in Texas, where she has been held since March.
In a statement released through her lawyers on Thursday, Kordia said she was shackled the entire time she was hospitalized and prevented from calling family or meeting with her lawyers.
“For three days in the emergency room, my hands and legs were weighed down by heavy chains as they drew my blood and gave me medications,” Kordia said. “I felt like an animal. My hands are still full of marks from the heavy metal.”
Her doctors, she said, told her the seizure may have been the result of poor sleep, inadequate nutrition and stress. Her lawyers previously warned that Kordia, a devout Muslim, had lost 49 pounds (22 kilograms) and fainted in the shower, in part because the jail had denied her meals that comply with religious requirements.
“I’ve been here for 11 months, and the food is so bad it makes me sick,” the statement continued. “At Prairieland, your daily life — whether you can have access to the food or medicine you need or even a good night’s sleep — is controlled by the private, for-profit business that runs this facility.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but said in a statement to The New York Times that Kordia wasn’t being mistreated and was receiving proper medical care.
A resident of New Jersey who grew up in the West Bank, Kordia was among around 100 people arrested outside Columbia University during protests at the school in 2024.
The charges against her were dismissed and sealed. But information about her arrest was later given to the Trump administration by the New York City police department, which said it was told the records were needed as part of a money laundering investigation.
Last year, Kordia was among the first pro-Palestinian protesters arrested in the Trump administration’s crackdown on noncitizens who had criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza. She is the only one who remains jailed.
She has not been accused of a crime and has twice been ordered released on bond by an immigration judge. The government has challenged both rulings, an unusual step in cases that don’t involve serious crimes, which triggers a lengthy appeals process.
Kordia was taken into custody during a March 13 check-in with US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. At the time, federal officials touted her arrest as part of the sweeping crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activists, pointing to her 2024 arrest outside of Columbia as proof of “pro-Hamas” activities.
Kordia said she joined the demonstration after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza, where she maintains deep personal ties. “My way of helping my family and my people was to go to the streets,” she told The Associated Press in October.
Federal officials have accused Kordia of overstaying her visa, while casting scrutiny on payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East. Kordia said the money was meant to help family members whose homes were destroyed in the war or were otherwise suffering.
An immigration judge later found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the payments. Attorneys for Kordia say she was previously in the US on a student visa, but mistakenly surrendered that status after applying to remain in the country as the relative of a US citizen.
In her statement on Thursday, Kordia said the detention facility was “built to break people and destroy their health and hope.”
“The best medicine for me and everyone else here is our freedom,” she added.
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