All About the Missing Malaysian Pilot, Zaharie Shah

Over
at Mediaite, Andrew Kirell has pulled together what Donald Rumsfeld
might call the “known knowns” about Zaharie Shah, the pilot of the
missing Malaysian Airlines plane.

Plenty of questions have arisen over whether the
pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 54, had any terrorist sympathies,
but the truth is that evidence has, thus far, proved
inconclusive.

In fact, many of Shah’s internet actions paint a portrait of a
man who barely fits the stereotypes of a religious fundamentalist
or separatist.

Among those actions? 

He’s a supporter of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, a
reformer who was once charged with sodomy laws by the current
authoritarian government. Shah’s YouTube statistics reveal he
has watched a lot of
Ibrahim videos. Shah is also believed to have attended the
court hearing that overturned Ibrahim’s those sodomy charges.
Ibrahim was once again jailed on those charges, just several hours
before MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur.

As expected, sources within the Malaysian government have called
Shah a “fanatical supporter” of Ibrahim, attempting to portray his
politics as radical and possibly violent. But Ibrahim’s People’s
Justice Party is on the forefront of a coalition using elections to
fight for “transparent and genuine democracy,” including a
constitution, separation of powers, as well as decentralized
economic controls. As Slate
described it: If anything, Shah is guilty of supporting “a
nonviolent man who supports a pluralistic and democratic
Malaysia.”

Read the whole thing.

Read Reason’s 24/7 latest roundup of everything related to Shah
and the disappearance of Flt 370, which Malaysian officials are now
investigating as deliberate.