Two suspicious passengers who used stolen passports to board the missing Malaysian Airlines plane carrying 239 people “were not Asian-looking men,” a senior Malaysian aviation official said on Monday.
Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Director-General of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, rejected Home Minister Zahid Hamidi’s claim that the two suspicious passengers had “Asian facial features.”
“We have looked and re-looked at the footage of the video and the photographs; it is confirmed now that they are not Asian-looking men,” Mr. Azharuddin said.
Malaysia police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said investigators have already identified one of the two suspicious passengers.
“I can confirm that he is not a Malaysian, but cannot divulge which country he is from yet,” the Star online quoted Mr. Khalid as saying.
“The man is not from Xinjiang in China,” he said.