KUALA LUMPUR, March 4 — Former air force major Zaidi Ahmad said today he will not divulge national secrets in his testimony as an expert witness in a lawsuit over the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370.
Zaidi — who was stationed at the Butterworth air base where the military radar had spotted the plane turning back over the peninsula before it disappeared on March 8 last year — said he will be “cautious” when testifying, also confirming that he will not divulge information that could jeopardise the country’s national defence.
“I’ll make sure I’ll not touch on any government or military secrets,” Zaidi told Malay Mail Online when contacted today.
“I will speak on things that are not secrets, things which are around in the public, you can find it on the Internet and also based on (my) own experience when working in Air Force, which i think the public deserves to know,” he added.
Armed Forces chief General Tan Sri Zulkifli Mohd Zin said yesterday that Zaidi may testify in the lawsuit by a Flight MH370 passenger’s two Malaysian teenage sons against Putrajaya and MAS, but stressed that the former airman remains bound by the Official Secrets Act 1972 (OSA).
Zulkifli said the armed forces had “nothing to hide” after it was pointed out that Zaidi’s testimony could implicate the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) in the aviation mystery, but stressed that the latter cannot disclose information detrimental to national security.
Zaidi had served with the RMAF for 26 years before his dismissal last January for breaching military protocols by publicly exposing weaknesses with the indelible ink used in Election 2013.
Zaidi said today that he will testify on publicly available knowledge in his role as an expert witness in the lawsuit that is also against the civil aviation director-general, the immigration director-general and the air force chief.
“Whatever I will speak has already been spoken before by ministers or reported in news portals, I’m just re-emphasising it so people will know and government will take it seriously and improve things,” he said, adding that he has yet to be informed of the hearing date for the lawsuit.
Zaidi also said the OSA applies to all Malaysians, including ministers and even civilians.
He claimed that past comments by ministers on required upgrades of defence equipment at military bases were tantamount to exposing weaknesses in national defence, saying that he considered them secrets which should not be publicly revealed.
Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 jetliner carrying 239 people, disappeared on March 8 last year less than an hour after take-off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport enroute to Beijing, China, and has remained missing ever since.
Local military radar at the Butterworth airbase spotted the plane flying westwards, but the Malaysian military has said that its 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”.
Zaidi was then stationed at the same airbase and told reporters last month that the RMAF “should be on alert” at all times, also saying that “heads must roll” over the matter.
