KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 19 — Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Bador rejected today a former Australian prime minister’s insinuation of a cover-up at the “highest levels” of the Malaysian government into the reason behind the missing Flight MH370.
The inspector-general of police asserted that he was one of the investigators and maintained there was no evidence to support Tony Abbott’s claim of a mass murder and suicide theory or that the Malaysian government were convinced it had been purportedly perpetrated by its pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah.
“I do not know who is the Malaysian official Abbott was referring to, but I was among those involved in the investigation.
“We investigated all angles like terrorism to hijack. There were many theories that involved the use of sophisticated technology and a lot of facts were gathered,” he said after attending a ceremony at the Police Training Centre here.
Abdul Hamid stressed that the exact cause of the vanished plane has not been determined.
He promised to reopen investigations if MH370’s frame is ever found.
Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared on March 8, 2014 with all 239 people on board.
Abbott was Australian prime minister during the MH370 tragedy in 2014 and made the remark in the first part of a documentary titled “MH370: The Untold Story” by broadcaster Sky News Australia that aired earlier this week.
Six Australians were among the passengers of the doomed flight.
Malaysia’s prime minister then was Datuk Seri Najib Razak, with Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai as transport minister, before Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein was appointed acting transport minister.
Underwater searches for the plane in the Indian Ocean, covering 120,000 square kilometres and costing about A$200 million, was subsequently suspended indefinitely in January 2017 until Malaysia accepted a “no-cure, no-fee” offer from US exploration firm Ocean Infinity in 2018.
The three-month search covered 112,000 sq km north of the original target area, without any new discovery when it was called off in May 2018.
An official 495-page report in July 2018 stated that MH370 was deliberately taken off course by a person or persons unknown.
