Passengers of the missing plane with other people's passports turned out to be Iranians

Two passengers of the missing Malaysia Airlines airliner, who were on board the aircraft on the stolen passports, were illegal immigrants from Iran, RIA Novosti reports.

Earlier it was reported that the two people who were originally on the passengers list, Austrian Christian Kozil and the Italian Luigi Maraldi are actually at home. Both of them previously announced the theft of their passports during their stay in Thailand. Interpol later confirmed that at least two passengers flew on other people's passports.

The Persian Air Force Service interviewed the Iranian living in the capital of Malaysia, who claims to be a friend of one of these passengers. According to him, the Iranians visited him in Kuala Lumpur, where they arrived to get through Beijing in Amsterdam. Iranians bought stolen passports to immigrate to Europe.

This information confirms earlier assumptions of the media that these passengers were immigrants. Kuala Lumpur is considered a major center for crossing illegal immigrants to Europe that use stolen passports.

The presence of passengers with stolen documents on board became one of the main arguments in favor of the version that the incident was not just a plane crash, but a planned terrorist attack. But, as Reuters reports with reference to sources familiar with the course of the investigation, this hypothesis is currently not confirmed by any weighty evidence.

The head of the Malaysian police, Khalid Abu Bakar, confirmed that at least one of the stolen passports was identified, the Star newspaper reports. “I can confirm that he is not a Malaysian, but so far I can’t name his citizenship,” the police representative said, adding that the identified was not a native of the Sinjan-Uyghur Autonomous Region located in the north-west of China, where the separatists operate.

The Malaysia Airlines airliner, which made a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew members, disappeared from the radar screens on Saturday night, without giving any signals about malfunctions on board or other problems. At the time of the last contact, he was 220 kilometers from the east coast of Malaysia. At the moment, 40 ships and 34 aircraft of military and rescue services of more than 11 countries are currently involved in search operations.

The representative of MAS previously confirmed that there were 154 passengers from the PRC and Taiwan, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four of the US citizens, two New Zealanders, Ukrainians and Canadians, one resident of Russia, Italy, Italy, Italy, and Austria. However, then the national affiliation of at least four of those who were on board was called into question in connection with the data that they took advantage of the stolen passports.