One of the passengers travelling on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on a stolen passport was in fact a teenage Iranian and has no terror links, Malaysian police have said.
It is thought that the 19-year-old, who has now been identified as Pouria Nour Mohammad Mahread was trying to eventually reach Germany, where he was hoping to seek asylum, BBC reported, citing Malaysian police.
Interpol has released the name of the other passenger also travelling on stolen passport as Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza.
Speculations and rumors that the flight could have been hijacked by terrorists went viral, after it was reported that two of the passengers on board the flight were travelling on stolen passports. Police have now confirmed the young Iranian was one of the two passengers.
Malaysia's police chief Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar was quoted saying that the Iranian was "not likely to be a member of a terrorist group". The police also added that they have been in contact with the young man's mother who had been expecting her son to arrive in the city of Frankfurt.
Earlier reports from Thailand suggested that the tickets of the two men travelling in stolen passports had been bought through a Thai travel agent and an Iranian middle-man. The tickets routed them to Amsterdam via Beijing.
After the airline released the list of 239 people on the plane, Austria denied the presence of one of its citizens in the flight as the list had stated. The Austrian citizen was safe, while his passport was stolen two years ago.
Similarly, Italy's foreign ministry confirmed that no Italians were on the flight, as an Italian was listed on the manifest. Malaysian officials said that they are aware of the stolen passports.
Earlier on Sunday, there were also reports suggesting that a plane door and tail had been spotted in Vietnam waters. But Malaysia said the news was false.
Authorities also confirmed that the only lead they were using to find the missing place - oil slick - also did not belong to the aircraft.
Various aviation analysts are perplexed on the mysterious disappearance as no aircraft could possibly vanish without leaving any trace of what had happened.
The Flight MH370 that operated on a Boeing 777-200 aircraft departed Kuala Lampur at 12.41am on Saturday and was bound for Beijing. The aircraft was scheduled to land at the Beijing International Airport at 6:30am local time.
(Edited by Vishnuprasad S Pillai)
