From across the pond. Just a heads up, “supergrass” is British slang for “informer”.
Via The Telegraph
Evidence of a plot by Malaysian Islamists to hijack a passenger jet in a 9/11-style attack is being investigated in connection with the disappearance of Flight MH370
An al-Qaeda supergrass told a court last week that four to five Malaysian men had been planning to take control of a plane, using a bomb hidden in a shoe to blow open the cockpit door.
Security experts said the evidence from a convicted British terrorist was “credible”. The supergrass said that he had met the Malaysian jihadists – one of whom was a pilot – in Afghanistan and given them a shoe bomb to use to take control of an aircraft.
A British security source said: “These spectaculars take a long time in the planning.”
The possibility of such a plot, hatched by the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, was bolstered by an admission by Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, that the Boeing 777’s communications systems had been deliberately switched off “by someone on the plane”.
In a series of dramatic developments yesterday, it emerged that:
– Flight MH370 had changed direction and altitude after communications devices had been deliberately disabled;
– The plane flew for up to seven hours after civilian radar lost touch with it;
– An unnamed official briefed that the plane had been hijacked although Mr Najib refused to confirm that was the case;
– The plane flew towards either Indonesia or to Kazakhstan after the transponder and messaging systems were disabled;
– Police searched the homes of both pilots for two hours over concerns one may have switched off the communications systems in a suicide bid;
– Chinese officials accused Malaysia of withholding information in a ratcheting up of diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
In evidence in a court case last Tuesday, Saajid Badat, a British-born Muslim from Gloucester, said that he had been instructed at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan to give a shoe bomb to the Malaysians.
HT Theo Spark