One MH370 passenger with stolen passport identified: M’sian police

KUALA LUMPUR — One of the two passengers who used stolen passports to board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been identified, said Malaysia’s Inspector-General of Police today (March 10).

Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the man has been identified from KLIA CCTV footage.

“I can confirm that he is not a Malaysian, but cannot divulge which country he is from yet,” Mr Khalid was reported as saying by The Star Online today.

When asked if both of the men had immigration records of entering the country, Mr Khalid said police is trying to establish with immigration if there are any records of the two entering the country.

“The man is not from Xinjiang, China. We do not have verification of a Chinese militant group claiming responsibility for the missing plane,” The Star Online quoted Mr Khalid as saying.

He added that they have yet to classify the missing plane as linked to terrorism.

“Let us investigate the matter thoroughly,” he said urging the public not to speculate further on the matter.

Investigators are trying to uncover the true identities of the passengers who used the stolen passports of Italian Luigi Maraldi and Austrian Christian Kozel, whose passports were stolen on the Thai resort island of Phuket.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the passengers were of Asian appearance and criticised border officials for allowing them through security checkpoints.

“I am still perturbed. Can’t these immigration officials think? Italian and Austrian (passport holders) but with Asian faces?” he said.

The behaviour of the bogus travellers is highly suspicious, fueling speculation that a terrorist attack brought down the plane.

Flight booking information shows the passengers bought the tickets together at a travel agency in Pattaya, a seaside city outside Bangkok that is a known haunt of international criminal networks.

They booked the flight to Beijing where they would not have had to clear customs before taking another flight from Beijing to Amsterdam.

One, travelling under Mr Maraldi’s name, was due to proceed to Copenhagen and the other to Frankfurt, Germany.

The men paid for the fares in Thai baht.

The real Mr Maraldi was brought to a police press conference in Phuket, where he is on holiday, yesterday, telling how he reported his passport stolen on August 1 last year while on a previous holiday to Thailand.

The passport went missing after he deposited it to rent a vehicle at a business in Patong, the red light tourist area on Phuket where hundreds of passports are lost or stolen every year.

In Thailand, passport forgery and theft is a huge underground business. THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER