Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is sitting at home, feeling very depressed. As he sits at his flight simulator computer set up, he ponders his life. His first love is flying. He has a long and distinguished career flying for Malaysian Airlines, but recently, he had been put on leave and wasn’t flying (this information originated from his friends inside a Malay language forum. They say that he was on leave due to personal problems). He felt humiliated.
Another factor leading to his despondent nature is that his political hopes and dreams have been dashed again, as the person he supports, Anwar Ibrahim, has again been allegedly thwarted by the Malaysian government
Article, “Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was an ‘obsessive’ supporter of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur it is understood 53-year-old Shah attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was jailed for five years. Campaigners say the politician, the key challenger to Malaysia’s ruling party, was the victim of a long-running smear campaign and had faced trumped-up charges. Police sources have confirmed that Shah was a vocal political activist – and fear that the court decision left him profoundly upset. It was against this background that, seven hours later, he took control of a Boeing 777-200 bound for Beijing and carrying 238 passengers and crew.”
Captain Shah had placed all his faith and support behind Anwar Ibrahim, the Leader of Opposition of Malaysia (Pakatan Rakyat), and an internationally renowned speaker on the subjects of democracy, freedom, governance, Islam and the need for accountability, and a relation of the Captain through marriage. Anwar has had his own difficulties. He had been accused in 1999 by Prime Minister Mahathir of being a homosexual at a news conference in Malaysia, which he later successfully sued for defamation. Again in 2008, allegations were made by an aide against Anwar of alleged homosexual acts.
On 21 March 2011 another accusation was made against Anwar of homosexual acts when a sex video appeared which claimed to feature Anwar Ibrahim. A day after that, Anwar Ibrahim denied his involvement in the incident and filed a police complaint. Homosexuality (more specifically sodomy) in Malaysia is a crime which will imprison anyone found guilty for up to 20 years, and also potentially exposes them to strokes of the cane and a fine. Anwar was an outspoken critic of these laws and called them "archaic”. Anwar maintained that he does not advocate legalizing homosexuality or making gay marriage permissible — only that the laws should be amended to ensure private affairs are not penalized. "It is not my business to attack people or arrest people based on their sexual orientation," he said. "Morality is in the public sphere, not beyond that."
Being grounded from the flying he loves most, and with his political hopes and dreams now dashed once more, he decides the only thing left to do is to take his own life in a way that will punish the government he despises, and the government owned airline that was punishing him for his political views and allegiances.
But how can he punish the airline and government, but at the same time, keep his honor intact. Just crashing a plane will be revealed by the crash investigators as a suicide (as has been demonstrated in other commercial pilot investigations). He comes up with a plan to commit suicide by crashing a commercial flight, but in a way that the wreckage is never found. That way, investigators could not determine that the crash was a deliberate action on his part.
www.thetimes.co.uk
