A man travelling on a stolen passport on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was a young Iranian who has no links to terrorists.
A man travelling on a stolen passport on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was a young Iranian who has no links to terrorists. Reuters

The mystery behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 deepens further as latest report returns to terrorism, however, the possible suspects are no longer the two Iranian men with stolen passports, but the plane's pilot and the same group behind the 9/11 attack in the U.S.

Al Qaeda informant Saajid Badat, a Muslim from Gloucester born in Britain, told a court on Tuesday that Malaysian men were planning to take control of a jet by using a bomb hidden in a shoe to blow open the cockpit door, News.com.au quoted a Daily Telegraph report.

He made the revelation in a New York court via a video testimony at the trial of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the son-in-law of Osama Bin Laden.

Mr Badat disclosed that he met four Malaysian jihadists in Afghanistan and gave them the shoe bomb so they could control the plane. He said one of them is a pilot, although he did not specify if he is referring to Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah of the MAH 370.

It is also unclear if the Malaysian plotters he met are the same group behind the disappearance of Flight 370 since the meeting took place likely before Mr Badat's arrest in 2003. He was part of another plot to blow up a jet in 2001 using also a shoe bomb, but he backed out at the last minute. He has been serving his 13-year prison term since 2003 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to blow a U.S.-bound jet.

He identified the mastermind of the Malaysian plot as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man behind the deadly 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001.

Malaysian authorities raided the homes of Mr Shah and his co-pilots and found an elaborate flight simulator.

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