KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — Putrajaya denied today that local authorities tampered with MH370’s cargo manifest, saying the latest allegation by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was his latest attempt at damaging Malaysia’s reputation for political gain.

In a brief statement here, a government spokesman pointed out that the full manifest for the Malaysia Airlines flight was released on May 14, along with other preliminary findings on the aircraft’s mysterious disappearance on March 8.

“Anwar Ibrahim’s allegation that the cargo manifest has been deleted or somehow covered-up is therefore demonstrably false,” the spokesman said.

“The leader of the opposition has repeatedly tried to smear his own country to international media. For example, by implying that Malaysian officials were complicit in a terrorist act regarding MH370.

“The cargo manifest allegation is just the latest attempt by Anwar Ibrahim to exploit the MH370 tragedy and damage Malaysia’s reputation for personal political gain,” the spokesman added.

The statement, which was sent to all media organisations via email tonight, also came with the full cargo manifest attached.

In a recent interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Four Corners programme, Anwar told the channel that his contact in MAS had informed him that the manifest had been deleted.

But the Opposition Leader admitted he could not verify the claim, saying all he could do was demand answers from the government.

“I could not verify that, the only reasonable action I could take was to raise specific questions and demand the cargo manifest,” he said.

“Even if it is deleted or not, the government must come (out and explain) in a transparent manner. You can’t expect the international community to have this huge search and rescue operation to find the debris. We have to know what is the cargo on the flight,” he added, according to a report yesterday by The Malaysian Insider.

Anwar later said he was unsure if his informer had seen the cargo manifest.

When asked why Malaysia would do such a thing, Anwar said it could be for the purpose of concealing evidence.

“The only plausible reason I could give is that either they want to conceal evidence in order to deflect.... or (they are) fearful the information will cause further embarrassment.

“To my mind, it is not acceptable, you are talking about lives and national security,” he was quoted as saying by the online news portal.

According to MH370’s preliminary report, the Boeing 777 jetliner was carrying 4.566 tonnes of mangosteens and 200 pieces of lithium ion batteries weighing about 2.453 tons.

MAS had given its assurance that the batteries were non-hazardous and complied with standards set by international aviation guidelines.

Anwar has repeatedly criticised the Malaysian government for its handling of the still-unsolved MH370 crisis.

Earlier last month, the former deputy prime minister said he would recommend an apology to China if given a say in the matter.

Speaking in London during an interview with Channel 4 News’ Jonathan Rugman, Anwar asserted that the Malaysian government had “blundered” in the way it conducted search operations for the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared on March 8 with 239 people — 153 of whom were Chinese — on board.

“If I have a say, I would say first you need to apologise because some blunders were committed, for example the way we treated some passengers and the fact we knew that the plane turned back but we continued to let the Chinese and the Vietnamese continue searching in the South China Sea,” Anwar said.

He was answering Rugman’s question about the anger that some Chinese citizens have directed at Malaysia since the plane’s disappearance.

Later, Anwar told Thailand’s The Nation newspaper that Putrajaya has major security flaws if it claims that the military could not detect MH370 as the plane deviated from its Beijing-bound route and doubled back over the peninsula.

He said that the Malaysian military radar at the Gong Kedak air force base in between Kelantan and Terengganu is a “very sophisticated” system that can track the border of Thailand to the central Malaysian peninsula, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.

“The air force staff might be asleep but … the beeps would be so loud that they must have been alerted and there would [be the] recording of the radar,” he said.

“The plane crossed five provinces, Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, Perak, Penang our heartland. We have major security problems if the government says it cannot detect,” added the opposition leader.

The Malaysian military has said that fighter jets did not intercept the Boeing 777 plane when it diverted from its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route and crossed back over the peninsula because the commercial jet was not viewed as “hostile”.

Flight MH370 disappeared in the early morning of March 8. The wide-body aircraft was carrying 239 people on board, including 12 crew members.

Search for the missing plane continues underwater in the southern Indian Ocean, off the coast of Perth in Australia.