Mystery passengers on Malaysian jet identified; officials discount terrorism as cause

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Mystery passengers on MH-370 identified; officials discount terrorism as cause

Fox News: Iranian asylum-seekers used stolen passports on Malaysia Airlines flight​

Interpol said Tuesday that the two passengers who used stolen passports to board a Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared early Saturday morning were Iranians seeking asylum in Europe.

Interpol secretary general Ronald K. Noble identified the men as Pouri Nourmohammadi, 19, and Delavar Seyedmohammaderza, 29. Noble said that the two men had traveled to Malaysia from Tehran using Iranian passports, but had secured stolen Italian and Austrian passports in Kuala Lumpur for their journey to Beijing and Amsterdam, for which both had tickets and planned to travel together.

Malaysian authorities said that Nourmohammadi planned to proceed from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, Germany, where his mother lives. The woman contacted authorities when her son failed to arrive as planned. The BBC reported that Seyedmohammaderza's intended final destination was Copenhagen, Denmark.

The disclosure by Interpol confirmed a report aired late Monday by the BBC's Persian service, which cited a friend of both men who hosted them at his home in Kuala Lumpur as they prepared to travel to Beijing, the final destination of the missing plane.

It is typical, according to the Fox News story, for Iranians to use stolen passports when seeking political, religious, or social asylum. There is a large Iranian community in Malaysia, and many Iranians from their homeland first gravitate to Malaysia before attempting to get away from the repressive regime by settling elsewhere in the world.

Conclusions of officials that this may not have been terrorism are plausible. I know Iranian men and women in Kansas City who have escaped Iran in exactly this fashion -- including a family of five who are members of my church (yeah, Iranian Baptists, imagine that!) -- but it occurs to me that using the cover of asylum seeking in order to commit an act of terrorism is also plausible. Guess we'll have to wait and find out.