KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 ― Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders today criticised Putrajaya’s decision to announce last night that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 ended in the Indian Ocean without physical evidence to back the conclusion.
Senior leaders from opposition parties PKR, DAP and PAS also accused Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein of misleading Dewan Rakyat during his briefing yesterday evening prior to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s announcement.
They now insist on a fresh briefing by the acting transport minister.
The PR lawmakers also repeated their call for a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on MH370, claiming to have the backing of Barisan Nasional (BN) backbenchers.
Led by Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the PR lawmakers also repeated their call for a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on MH370, claiming to have the backing of Barisan Nasional (BN) backbenchers.
“There have been 1,001 questions about the MH370 catastrophe, but the main question is on the search and rescue … It looks like after yesterday there were more questions,” DAP national advisor Lim Kit Siang told reporters at the Parliament here.
“On what basis did the government think it was a closure? Everybody after 18 days of despair, were looking forward to closure. But this is a closure without closure.”
According to Lim, there is no physical evidence of any debris or wreckage from the plane, only sightings from a satellite, which cannot be accepted by families of the victims.
PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said the party subscribed to what he called an Islamic tradition that a person may only be declared dead after was missing for four years.
“We did not have to be hasty in making a conclusion. Investigations are still ongoing,” Anwar added, accusing Putrajaya of not being transparent enough in handling the tragedy.
The Permatang Pauh MP claimed that PR lawmakers are only taking Najib’s conclusion “at face value”, but refused to state if they are entertaining other explanations for MH370.
The leaders also alleged that despite knowing in advance the information that the last known location for MH370 was over the southern Indian Ocean, Hishammuddin still said during his briefing yesterday that a search and rescue operation was still being conducted in South China Sea.
“I feel outraged, I feel offended because it was clearly a lie ... I understand he could not tell the house what the PM will announce but he should not have misled the house. I am very angry,” Lim said.
PAS’s Datuk Mahfuz Omar also explained that he had yesterday met the chairman of BN Backbenchers Club Tan Sri Shahrir Samad together with Seremban MP Anthony Loke to discuss the possibility of forming a PSC.
“Today, he will meet the PM to suggest a PSC,” the Pokok Sena MP claimed.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak proposed this morning an emergency motion in Dewan Rakyat to mourn the fate of flight MH370’s passengers and crew, expressing Putrajaya’s condolences over the incident.
The emergency motion was seconded by Arau MP Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim and representatives from the main parties will debate the motion today.
Najib revealed last night that analysis by UK commercial satellite firm Inmarsat and the Air Accidents Investigation Board concluded that MH370 was flown toward the Indian Ocean after it deviated from its flight to Beijing.
MAS yesterday informed the families of passengers and crew that it must “assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived.”
But despite sightings of debris by satellites and planes searching the area, no conclusive evidence has yet to be recovered to indicate that the plane went down in the Indian Ocean.
MH370 and the 239 people on board disappeared less than an hour after the Beijing-bound flight left Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.41am on March 8. The plane and its passengers remain missing despite over two weeks of intensive searching by a multinational effort.
