SOMETHING's fishy with the two Iranians whose pictures were distributed by authorities yesterday.
They have identical legs!
It could be a copy and paste error where the images of the close circuit television (CCTV) were too large to be printed onto a single A4 sheet of paper, hence they had to do two print outs – one of the top and another of the bottom. However the image of the bottom half of one man was printed twice and inadvertently pasted on the picture of top half of the other, hence producing an intriguing image of a distorted passenger.
Pouri Nour Mohammadi, 19, and Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29, were apparently caught by CCTV on their way to board MH 370 which had been missing since Saturday morning.
These are the two men who police say have flown on stolen passports belonging to Italian Luigi Maraldi and Austrian Christian Kozel.
Delavar seems proportionate, so it seems that Pouri had his top half photo-shopped onto the former’s legs.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said the two men arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 20.
Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abnu Bakar said Pouri’s mother had been waiting for her son in Frankfurt and contacted Malaysian police when he did not show up.
While not ruling out terrorism, Khalid said he was more inclined to believe that the men were part of a passport theft and human trafficking ring who had bought stolen passports to facilitate their migration to Europe in search of a better life.
Several foreign media have already caught on and are questioning if the Malaysian authorities have something to hide. Finland's Ilta Sanomat for instance, proposes a cover up.
Fz.com was alerted to the anomaly by our National Security columnist Andrin Raj.
“I have no idea why they would want to doctor the picture,” he said, adding that it could have been an administrative mistake that one should not be looking into.
“But this is certainly going to add fuel to the fire that Malaysia has not been on the ball or worse, something to hide,” he said.
Andrin’s concerns are valid. Since the beginning of the tragedy we have had contradictory statements from the authorities and the lax of border security is evident with the testimony of the Immigration Director General Datuk Aloyah Mamat that standard operating procedures allow stolen passports to be used when entering and leaving the country.
The fact that a simple check with Interpol’s systems would have red flagged passports reported stolen also shows up our lackadaisical approach to securing our borders.
Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein offers this lame excuse: “Do you know how many passports are reported stolen every year? 40 million!”
So what?
There is a system that the Government has access to which could help reduce instances of people travelling on stolen documents.
And now with Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director general Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman's “Batolli, Balotelli” snafu and Khalid’s theory of someone taking out a large insurance policy on himself and downing the plane so his family could enjoy the payout provide unexpected comic relief during somber press conferences.
But what takes the cake is the two officials’ contradictory statements.
Azharuddin’s earlier statement of the existence of five passengers who checked in but did not board, was debunked by Khalid who said there were no such passengers in the first place.
My question is who would know better? The DCA who are on the field or the police who always arrive after the fact?
With such different versions of events, one cannot blame families, the Malaysian public and the world for wondering if the search and investigation efforts are in competent hands!
Terence is managing editor of Fz.com. He tweets @TerenceFnandez and can be reached at Terence.fernandez@fz.com
Read more: http://www.fz.com/content/mh370-leggy-iranians-give-more-fodder-conspiracy#ixzz2vi4Wo0RP
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