Where Is Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370?

Transcript: INTERPOL Press Conference on MH370 
11 March 2014
Transcript by Tiara Shafiq

INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble press conference at the INTERPOL General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon, France to update on enquiries in relation to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370.

Noble: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, welcome to Interpol’s General secretariat headquarters and thank you for being with us today.

In this opening remarks I’d like to take a moment to remind ourselves of why we are all here. Why INTERPOL staff and police in China, Malaysia, Vietnam and elsewhere have been working around the clock since last Friday sharing information and facilitating communication with countries’ police across Asia, Europe and beyond.

Just this morning I had the honour of hosting Alessando Pansa, the head of the Italian State Police. (points to person in audience) Please stand, stand.

Italy has played a vital role in making sure that when a passport is reported lost or stolen in Italy the data is entered in Interpol’s database, is for one reason – so the data can be screened before people cross borders and before people enter planes.

But most importantly we need to remind ourselves for whom we’re doing this, and for whom we will never stop even when the spotlight would have moved away from this case. In this case, simply put, we owe it to the 239 passengers of flight MH370, to their families, to their loved ones and their friends. To them I say that our priority will always be to put an end to the excruciating pain of uncertainty. As a matter of fact, this – and not terrorism, not stolen passports, not conspiracy theories – was our very first thought.

The moment INTERPOL learnt of the disappearance of flight MH370 we immediately offered our assistance in disaster victim identification efforts to the countries involved. That offer still stands and INTERPOL’s ready to honour that commitment the minute the fate of flight MH370 is ascertained.

In parallel we continue to work with our member countries to follow all available leads and examine all options - including terrorism, organized crime, illegal movement of people – whether in the form of human trafficking or smuggling.

We have information to share with you that hasn’t been publicly made available until now. (to someone at the back) Could we have the slide?

There have been images on the media about the two individuals believed to be the two individuals who were in possession of the stolen Italian passport and the stolen Austrian passport to board flight 370.

We have this photograph showing the two individuals who travelled using passports NOT that were stolen, NOT that were Italian, and NOT that were Austrian. This image is showing them using passports of Iranian nationality. The names are P-O-U-R-I first name Pouri, last name listed on the passport was N-O-U-R-M-O-H-A-M-M-A-D-I Pouri Nourmohammadi, date of birth 30 April 1995 – in the media there’s been reports of a 19-year-old. Again, what we know is it’s the Iranian passport information. HIS identity is something we’re going to ask the media and viewers around the world to help us confirm.

The second individual, who I’ve not read his name in the media, is named Delavar D-E-L-A-V-A-R and the last name is Syed Mohammadreza S-Y-E-D M-O-H-A-M-M-A-D-R-E-Z-A. Again S-Y-E-D M-O-H-A-M-M-A-D-R-E-Z-A. Again, Iranian passport, date of birth on the passport 21 September 1984.

Neither of these Iranian passports were reported stolen or were listed in INTERPOL’s databases. Therefore any airline, any border control agency, comparing these passport names and numbers against INTERPOL’s databases would not have had a hit.

We know that once these two individuals arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the 28^th of February they boarded flight 370 using different identities – a stolen Austrian and a stolen Italian passport.

We are in the process of asking our member countries around the world to provide us with any additional information concerning the images, concerning the names on the passports, and the passport numbers. We’re cooperating with INTERPOL Malaysia, INTERPOL China, INTERPOL Iran and all of the member countries involved in this investigation.

There’s been great, great speculation ever since it was revealed that two passport holders were carrying passports that were reported lost or stolen. Great speculation on whether or not this was a terrorist attack or wasn’t a terrorist attack. And suddenly people seem to be concerned for the first time whether it’s good or bad to allow people to travel the world using stolen passports. People began to understand how dangerous it is to have people travel the world using stolen passports.

But already in the last 24 hours you see the story changing as the belief becomes more certain that these two individuals were probably not terrorists. The interest seems to be dying down because they might just be people who were being smuggled or trafficked.

And from INTERPOL’s perspective, the fear, the concern we should all have is that more than a billion times each year, there’s people that have either crossed people or boarded planes without having passports screened against INTERPOL’s database. From experience that goes back as far as February 26 1993 when the first WorldTradeCenter bombing occurred: we know that the terrorist who masterminded that bombing was carrying a stolen Iraqi passport across borders. We know that in Europe, with that assassination of a prime minister, committed by Milorad Ulemek, who had his passport stamped twenty-seven times without having it compared to INTERPOL’s databases. And we know that uh, the so-called White Widow also was in possession of a stolen passport, that she was able to cross borders using – without having it checked against INTERPOL’s databases.

So I close my introductory remarks by saying the, the focus of the world right now, and of law enforcement, of INTERPOL, should be on trying to find the plane – and hopefully find survivors, as difficult as that might be to believe that that might occur, and to helping to support investigations on the ground with regard to that. But also thinking about the next case or cases where dangerous people – not innocent people, dangerous people – could be crossing borders, with evil on their minds and hearts, to harm us all.