, an Australian current affairs TV programme, ABC News reported today.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s brother-in-law, Asuad Khan, told the Australian news network that the 53-year-old had been the subject of rumours and inaccurate reporting since the day the jetliner disappeared on March 8.
“From what I can see, a lot of people are saying a lot of things about him which are untrue,” he was quoted as saying, speaking on behalf of Zaharie's wife, Faizah Khan.
ABC News also quoted Asuad as saying the allegations levelled against Zaharie regarding his personal life and professional activities were untrue.
Asuad also denied that the captain could have been a rogue pilot on a suicide mission and said the authorities might be using Zaharie as a scapegoat.
“Put it this way, this is a promise – if they blame him, I'll fight. I just won't sit down, keep quiet,” he said.
“Because if you say that he wanted to (commit) suicide in the Indian Ocean, I say prove it.
“If he wanted to (commit) suicide, he wouldn't. Why would he want to kill 238 people with him? Why would he be so stupid? He is not.”
Asuad also told of the initial moments when his sister Faizah found out that flight MH370 went missing, adding that his sister tried to ring her husband's mobile phone.
“She did try but it went to the voicemail. It didn't ring.”
Asuad added that Faizah was also hounded by the media since the disappearance of flight MH370 and was not coping well.
“I can see that. I was there for a week. I'm looking at her, I'm seeing that she's breaking, totally breaking,” he said told ABC News.
On the captain’s personality, Assuad told ABC News he was a happy, generous and kind man.
The Australian newsportal quoted him on the interviews Faizah and the family’s maid had to go through regarding the incident.
“(The police) asked normal questions.
“How's your husband? Is he depressed? Or was he having problems with anything or if they have any (marriage) problems. All sorts of questions. His mental state.
“But he was a sane man. I don't think he was a crazy man.”
Tonight’s episode of Four Corners is set to shed more light on missing flight MH370 and Zaharie through interviews with his family, a forensic reconstruction of the baffling disappearance of the plane, along with an interview with acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.
Flight MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the early hours of March 8.
The search for the plane has become the longest in modern passenger-airline history. The previous record was the 10-day search for a Boeing 737-400 operated by Indonesia’s PT Adam Skyconnection Airlines, which went missing off the coast of Sulawesi on January 1, 2007. – May 19, 2014.
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