SYDNEY: Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has claimed “very top” level Malaysian officials believed vanished Flight MH370 was deliberately downed by the captain in a mass murder-suicide.
The Malaysia Airlines jet vanished on March 8, 2014 carrying 239 people — mostly from China — en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
No sign of the plane was found in a 120,000-square kilometer Indian Ocean search zone and the Australian-led search, the largest in aviation history, was suspended in January 2017.
A US exploration firm launched a private hunt in 2018 but it ended after several months of scouring the seabed without success.
The disappearance of the plane has long been the subject of a host of theories — ranging from the credible to outlandish — including that veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had gone rogue.
In an excerpt from a Sky News documentary airing Wednesday, Abbott claims he was told within a week of it vanishing that Malaysia believed the captain had intentionally downed the jet.
“My very clear understanding from the very top levels of the Malaysian government is that from very, very early on here, they thought it was murder-suicide by the pilot,” he said.
“I’m not going to say who said what to whom but let me reiterate, I want to be absolutely crystal clear, it was understood at the highest levels that this was almost certainly murder-suicide by the pilot — mass murder-suicide by the pilot.”
Zaharie’s family and friends have long strongly rejected such claims as baseless.
Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the former head of Malaysia’s civil aviation regulator, criticized Abbott’s remarks and said there was not sufficient proof to support the idea.
“It is only a theory,” Azharuddin, who led the regulator when Flight MH370 disappeared, said.
“You do this speculation and it will hurt the next of kin. The family of the pilot will also feel very bad because you are making an accusation without any proof.”
In 2016, Malaysian officials revealed the pilot had plotted a path over the Indian Ocean on a home flight simulator but stressed this did not prove he deliberately crashed the plane.
A final report into the tragedy released in 2018 pointed to failings by air traffic control and said the course of the plane was changed manually.
But they failed to come up with any firm conclusions, leaving relatives angry and disappointed.
Six passengers were Australian, including four from Queensland state, where Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk this week suggested authorities may pursue an inquest into their deaths.
Malaysia suspected MH370 downed in murder-suicide: former Australian PM
https://arab.news/wg9wq
Malaysia suspected MH370 downed in murder-suicide: former Australian PM
- The Malaysia Airlines jet vanished on March 8, 2014 carrying 239 people en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing
- No sign of the plane was found in a 120,000-square kilometer Indian Ocean search zone and the Australian-led search
Spain to ban social media for children under 16, prime minister tells WGS
- Pedro Sanchez: Our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone
- Sanchez: A space of addiction, abuse, pornography, manipulation, violence. We will no longer accept that, and we will protect them from the digital Wild West
DUBAI: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Tuesday that his country will seek to ban children aged under 16 from using social media platforms.
Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Sanchez outlined a six-point plan he said would help restore the “promised land” it once was.
“Our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone,” he said.
“A space of addiction, abuse, pornography, manipulation, violence. We will no longer accept that, and we will protect them from the digital Wild West.”
The announcement follows a similar ban by Australia last year. French lawmakers also passed a bill last week that would ban those aged under 15 from accessing social platforms. The UK has also announced it is considering new controls.
To enforce the ban, the Spanish government will reportedly seek to order platforms to put in place stringent age verification methods. It also plans to introduce a new bill next week to hold social media executives accountable for illegal and hateful content.
Sanchez added that Spain had joined five other European countries that he labelled the “Coalition of the Digitally Willing” to coordinate and enforce cross-border regulation.
