Free Republic

With the authorities settling on what amounts to air piracy, the Daily Mail is reporting a theory that the pilot of MH370 may have hijacked the plane as a political protest against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's latest sodomy conviction. The British tabloid revealed that hours before he took command of the Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO) bound for Beijing last Saturday, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had gone to court on March 7 for the trial and sentencing of Anwar in the sodomy case. The opposition leader was jailed for five years by the Court of Appeal which had overturned his High Court...

PKR vice president R Sivarasa confirmed that MH370 flight captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a life member of the party. However, the Subang MP said that the membership had nothing to do with the missing MAS airplane. “He was a PKR member since Jan 23 last year and campaigned for us during the general election but this is irrelevant to the case,” said Sivarasa told a press conference here Sunday. Sivarasa was responding to a Daily Mail report which claimed Zaharie was a “political fanatic”. Read: Flight captain a "political fanatic," reports Daily Mail The tabloid also claimed that Zaharie...

Fears emerged tonight that the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet may have hijacked the plane himself as an anti-government protest. Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a fervent supporter of his country's opposition leader who was jailed for homosexuality - illegal in Malaysia - only hours before flight MH370 vanished with 239 passengers and crew on board, the Sunday Mirror can reveal. And in a new twist, it emerged that the pilot's wife and three children moved out of the family's home the day before the plane's disappearance. The revelations came after Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak yesterday confirmed...