Parliamentarian Hossein Naghavi Hosseini suspected the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane was part of a dastardly plot to undermine Iran’s relations between China and Southeast Asia.
Call off the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, an Iranian lawmaker has solved the mystery.
The United States “kidnapped” the airliner as part of a conspiracy to “sabotage the relationship between Iran and China and Southeast Asia,” parliamentarian Hossein Naghavi Hosseini said, according to a translation by The New York Times.
The fact that two Iranians were traveling on the plane using stolen passports was part of “the plot,” Hosseini reportedly said.
“Documents published by the Western media about two Iranians getting on the plane without passports is psychological warfare,” he said Tuesday, according to The Times.
WONG MAYE-E/AP
Malaysian officials continued scouring both sides of the peninsula for any evidence of the Boeing 777.
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“Americans recruit some people for such kinds of operations so they can throw the blame on other countries, especially Muslim countries.”
The same day Hosseini made the farfetched statement that Interpol and Malaysian officials revealed the identities of the two Iranians traveling with false documents and all but ruled out they were terrorists.
One of the men, 19-year-old Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, had been trying to reach Germany where he would meet his mother and seek asylum.
SAKCHAI LALIT/AP
A Thai policeman shows a copy of one of the stolen passports, which belonged to Italian citizen Luigi Maraldi.
Officials didn’t specify the purpose of his companion’s trip, 29-year-old Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza.
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Both flew to Malaysia using their Iranian passports, then switched to the stolen documents when boarding the vanished plane Saturday.
Some 43 ships and 39 aircraft from at least eight nations continue scouring 35,800 square miles of ocean for any evidence of the Boeing 777.
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Iranians seeking refuge in the West often travel there via Asian countries.
The Times notes that Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have accomodating visa rules, and robust networks of travel agents and smugglers who can help Iranians reach their Western destinations.
