i think dobson described anwar ibrahim in the growth of opposition beautifully.o you're both at an inflection point inside malaysia, over a very controversial, really an indictment, if you will, of malaysia's government at home. we don't only have the disappeared airliner. we had other cases of the passports that had been bought on the thai market and brought on with passports that had been declared in interpol. and it so raises a fundamental question about corruption in malaysia, competence in malaysia, and the solvency of that government writ large. so while we're all looking for where the airliner is, malaysiaen themselves are looking at a big spotlight for their government and how incompetent and corrupt it appears to them. >> and william, now an increasing light being shined on this pilot, what do you make of now describing him as fanatical supporter of anwar ibrahim. >> it definitely is a distraction. and it's important to note this story sort of began the way stories like this often began, which is unnamed sources, many of them appearing to be police sourc

anwar ibrahim. >> author of the dictator's learning curve. thank you for coming on and explaining this part of the story. we appreciate it. >> time to see what is trending on the web. what do you have? >> general motors announce a round of recalls on monday. this time 1.5 million vehicles are being recalled for airbag and break problems. so far there has been no reported injuries, but gm recalled 1.6 veectss for faulty ignition swaches. to make matters worst, gm knew about the problems for more than a decade. on monday gm's newly appointed c.e.o. released this statement focussing on how the ignition problem was handled. >> something went wrong with the process in this instance and terrible things happen. the system for deciding and managing recalls will change your. we are redoubling the product reviews, bringing them forward and resolving them quickly. >> a lot of people on social media are weighing in saying: have you been affected by the recalls. tweet us. this may be the beginning for gm, the fbi and the department of justice are pursuing

chief international correspondent christiane amanpour just sat down with anwar ibrahim.christiane joining us from loobloob london. what did he tell you? >> reporter: this is the most extraordinary case of this incredible mystery intersecting with malaysia's democratic opposition later. he was very upset in that he said how can these people be connecting us without a single shred of evidence. he denied pointblank that the pilot was in any way motivated by being upset at his current legal case that was reinstated in court. listen to what he told me about knowing the pilot. >> he is related to my daughter-in-law, who is now working in new york. and i've met him on a number of occasions during party meetings, clamoring for a forum, supporting us in elections for democracy in malaysia. >> reporter: i want to read how one of your spokesmen described mr. shah, the pilot. he is anwar's son's wife's mother's father's brother's son. does that sound right? >> that's a bit too complex. but my daughter-in-law told me that he is a family member, not too close, but -- she calls him unc

to be affiliated with and supportive of anwar ibrahim's party in malaysia is to be affiliated with radical secularists, who believe in women's rights, radicals who believe in free press. when this first got reported because the malaysian government doesn't see it that way. they see him as a deep threat to their survival politically and thus by working, you know, the machinations behind the scenes in which they were trying to make the pilot look like a bad guy for being affiliated with this, to the rest of the world, who is somewhat informed about malaysian politics, they're basically saying this pilot is a good guy. unless there's some sort of secret conspiracy of women's rights activists in the sort of southeast asian muslim world that rather than being islamic radicals or essentially islamic secularists and moderates which doesn't, of course, make any sense at all. to a certain degree, by the background machinery trying to savage the character of the pilot in this particular case, they've actually highlighted him as a very interesting political personality in a very tense political time.

we also discovered that the main pilot of this aircraft was an obsessive follower of this guy anwar ibrahim. >> it comes down to the hard drives recovered from the pilot and co-pilot's homes. what investigators are looking for here are whether their are signs of premeditation, whether the men were getting their affairs in order or whether there was an indication they tried to wipe those computer hard drives in an effort to conceal evidence. >> we know in his own words last year, that the pilot, saweary shah made this video. >> this is a youtube video that i made as a community service after learning a lot from youtube and forum and wickipedia, regarding the household air conditioning unit. >> what do you think? are they looking at that closely? >> they're looking at the youtube video very closely and also in the context of the other social media postings that he's made. he's a self-declared aviation geek and he also shows in that video an aviation simulator, a high understanding of electronics. these systems were systematically shutdown, and one of the questions is whether the satellite lin

sentenced to five years in jail, apparently the trial ended several hours after this flight took off, anwar ibrahim, we'll play some of his comments later in the program tonight. but does that raise a red flag for you whether his cause was just or not? that is not at issue here. >> it raises a red flag that it could have created an emotional impact in somebody that is not exactly all there. but with all the prior planning, it sounds like this was not just decided on three, four, five hours, six hours before they did this. sounds like something like that had to have been planned for a while in advance. they had -- there was too much in it. too many thing that s that were off and changed. hard to believe they just changed -- >> we had general mcinerney on the show, we'll play some of that coming up. but he is really convinced that this plan was purposely, landed in pakistan. he has some intelligence -- why wouldn't boeing be able to track this plane? >> i would think they would be able to -- >> and they haven't said anything. >> well, you know, there is a lot of this i imagine that we don't know. the

people in the government saw this as an opportunity to link anwar ibrahim to the pilot. >> it was reported the captain was in the courtroom hours before the flight when ibrahim was sentenced to five years on sodomy charges. charges the opposition insists to were designed to eliminate him from politics. >> wasn't there friday afternoon right at the point the sentencing took place. >> as a multinational search effort closes in on the suspected resting site of flight 370, dr. aziz hopes the flight data recorder will be located and with it the evidence to clear the pilots. >> once we get the black box, we can have the answers. if we can't find all those, then we will start pointing fingers and say all sorts of things and it's very difficult for us to defend. >> the captain's family has gone into seclusion after voluntarily talking with investigators. but his son, seth, talked with local media telling them whatever i have read has not changed my heart. i have ignored these speculations. i know who my father is. we understood each other. jim clancy, cnn, kuala lumpur. >> so continued speculation

unfortunately, because politics is so highly charged right now, a lot of this centers around anwar ibrahim, a very popular politician with some, a very disliked politician with others. you know, it's the kind of a political spat. you have to really watch how you're trying to read that. it was said that the pilot, zaharie ahmad shah, was a strong supporter, attended the trial, went to see the trial of anwar ibrahim in the days before this flight went off. >> jim clancy, leading up our reporting as well as barbara starr. jim, i'm sorry, say again? we have other breaking news i'm told from producers in the control room that i need to get in. a u.s. official is telling barbara starr that the u.s. intelligence community is increasingly focused on, quote, those in the cockpit of the flight as being deliberately responsible for the missing jet. plus the same u.s. official telling cnn that a search is now focused in the southern indian ocean. and remember officials had previously said that there were two possible paths the plane might have taken. u.s. military and intelligence are scouring their s

the captain was a public supporter of opposition party leader anwar ibrahim and a foreign the ruling party's side, a political party in control for over a years. zaharie attended anwar's pro-democracy rallies and meetings and even wore a democracy is dead t-shirt denouncing the one party rule in malaysia. for the first time, anwar tells cnn that he did, in fact, know the pilot of the missing plane can you describe how you know the pilot? >> well, he is attended some of the party meetings. and i confirm only afterwards whether he is a card carrying member of the party. >> reporter: why is that important? because just hours before malaysia airlines flight 370 took off, a court of appeals ordered anwar to prison on charges of sodomy, reversing the not guilty decision of a lower court. anwar says the sentence is a political vendetta. local press now asking did zaharie purposely down the plane to make a political statement? is it possible a supporter of yours would be willing to take this step in order to make a political statement on the global stage? >> it can not be conjecture. it's gro

we also discovered that the main pilot of this aircraft was an obsessive follower of this guy, anwar ibrahim, anymore updates on that? >> well, the key piece of evidence today really comes down to the hard drive that was recovered from the pilot and co-pilot, this is really the best evidence to find the actual flight. what the investigators are looking for here are whether there are signs of premeditation, whether the men were kind of getting their affairs in order or whether there was an indication they tried to wipe the computer hard drives in an effort to conceal evidence. >> all right, let me ask you this, we know in his own words, the pilot zaharie shah, he has this video on youtube. let me play it. our authorities paid attention to this. >> the video that i make -- community service. after learning a lot from youtube and forum and wikipedia, the household air conditioning unit. >> what do you think? are they looking at that closely? >> they are looking at the youtube video very closely and unless the context of the other social media postings that they may have made to get an insight i

. >> are you familiar with anwar ibrahim and the opposition and how that works over there and the pilots loyalties with the opposition and having gone the trial within seven hours of taking off that day? how does that fit? i'm not saying we're looking for a necessary connection but what does it mean politically to the leader shape the pilot of this plane that's been lost was in the opposition? >> i wouldn't over interpret that. i think the key lesson it seems to me associated with the politics of this is that this is a maturing political society. that is they haven't had the chance, the give-and-take and the battle of political parties and civil society to hone the skills necessary to do a better job of communicating in the midst of this crisis. so it's more along the lines of the fact that they haven't developed those skills because they haven't allowed that sort of opposition to play a role in society. only recently have they really had a contested election. so it's more that broader point that the government needs to move in the direction of more transparency and accountability and to

should i malaysian opposition leader anwar ibrahim has had the sentence for sodomy. we can put on more was acquitted of the charge two years ago today the courts typically gives judges were mis directed on what has been ordered to prison for five years he will also lose his seat in parliament. on day five of the murder trial of athlete oscar the story is a former girlfriend has told the court that she had seen the stories using weapons carelessly. she sat on one occasion he shot his pistol in the air while angry the stories of me shooting dead his girlfriend resisting camp that says it was an accident. soldier and motorcyclists have been killed during protests in venezuela. officials say they died in a confused delay caused by the opposition's barricaded in caracas street protests against leftist president nicholas mind to and his policies have been going on for weeks. twenty people have died in the national fire. well after that we'll break from the top tear into politics and veteran politician duncan and younger is making a comeback the european people's party has

zaharie is a member of the opposition party in malaysia, with close ties with the party's leader, anwar ibrahim, who was jailed the very same day of the flight, march 7th. his friends say that despite zaharie's t-shirt, declaring "democracy is dead," the pilot is not an extremist. as for the co-pilot, fariq abdul hamid, police also searched his home looking for clues, but the scene is hardly secure. hours before investigators arrived, we watched his two brothers leave the house, casually carrying out boxes of noodles and drinks. the families of passengers on that plane are closely watching every development, still holding out remote hope they could be found alive, including the family of that american passenger, a father, phillip wood. his brother tonight saying the wait is agonizing. >> it's gone from shock and disbelief to sadness, to a little bit of anger, frankly. and i think there's a little bit of a drive to get some answers. we're trying really hard to understand what's going on. >> reporter: this investigation is certainly intensifying. you can imagine, david, how these families are wai

malaysian parliament. >> you have to remember, more than half of malaysians actually voted for anwar ibrahim, the leader of the opposition. because malaysia has a sort of cronyism political system, the same government in power there since 1957 is still in power. and one of the things that raised the ire and suspicion of a lot of people inside malaysia was when the acting transport minister who happens to be a cousin of the prime minister made a point of saying that the missing pilot of the plane was a quote unquote fanatical supporter of the leader of the opposition. now, being a supporter of the opposition is just being a supporter of the opposition. he is not a radical. he has never proposed to overthrow the government by force, he is quite moderate. >> and he has been unduly targeted by this government. >> he has been unduly targeted by the government. one thing that has been odd, he was convicted on charges of sodomy, right before the plane disappeared. a lot of people in malaysia think the charges are spurrious. >> and we talked about how it complicated the dynamics, many countries in t

this pilot supported the opposition party, the minority party, and it's led by a guy named anwar ibrahim. and anwar has been really butting heads with the ruling party. well, the day before, just hours before this malaysia airlines actually went and took off from the airport behind me, anwar was sentenced to prison. he was convicted -- an appeals court overruled a charge from a lower court sending him back to jail for a sodomy charge. sodomy is illegal here so a lot of people here in malaysia were upset and that's where this narrative is coming from. did the pilot down this plane for political reasons. but anwar saying that's not true. >> there's a big leap between being political active against the ruling party and being a mass murderer, so a lot to find out, more about him. kyung lah, thank you for your reporting. all those time zones and five-second delays away. now let's bring in john, the aerospace boeing reporter for the "wall street journal." you wrote tonight, it hit the web and will be in tomorrow's paper about this new wrinkle that casts all kinds of doubt into the timeline tha

he was a life-long supporter of the opposition political party and its leader anwar ibrahim. >> some saw this has a way to rink him to the pilot and that's the reason it became a controversy. >> it's been reported captain shah was in the courtroom hours before the flight when ibrahim was sentenced to five years in prison on sodomy charges. charges the opposition insists are designed to eliminate anwar ibrahim from politics. >> i am quite clear about it. zawahiri wasn't that afternoon right up to the point the sentencing took place. >> as a multinational search effort continues, dr. aziz hopes the flight data recorder will be located and with it, the evidence to clear the pilots. >> the black box. once we get the black box, then we can have the answers. if we can't find all of those, then we will start pointing fingers. they will say all sorts of things. and it's very difficult for us to defend. >> captain shah's family has gone into seclusion. they did talk voluntarily with the police but they want to avoid all the media scrutiny. that's why it was important that his son seth came ou

we have analyzed the t-shirt he had, democracy is dead, his support of the opposition leader, anwar ibrahimhat all factors into your thinking. but the other thing is you have people you're talking to, sources you don't want to reveal. correct? >> that is correct. >> all right, now, we call it the "hannity" big board, general. so you're claiming as it took off from kuala lumpur, the original flight path would have been up here to beijing. if i can steal this here, we would go right down here. that would be the flight path we take normally? now general, i know you're able to see this. we know it went up. and why don't we take it from here. from there it made a westward turn. michael? >> yeah, i think the majority of the general's analysis is pretty spot on from a geo-political perspecti perspective. but i used to effectively command the top gun for equivalent. i used to teach radar and teach the transponders, how they work, and i used to teach people how to command the radar. so i'm very familiar with the general sort of hypothesis. so we know any radar position would be positioned on the coa

he took control of flight 370, the government sentenced distant relative and opposition leader anwar ibrahimjail. to some, a motive. also in focus, first officer fareed abdul hameed, age 27. hameed joined them five years ago and just graduated to the 757. there was no sense of distress. this 2011 photo shows hameed with two women he invited into the cockpit for an hour of smoking and flirting. one called the experience friendly but sleazy. >> he took my friend's hand and said, your hand is very creased. that means you're a creative person. >> this would suggest if this was a deliberate act, one pilot would have to in kpcapacitate t other. it would not be the first time a lone wolf pulled off a murder. >>> former analyst, former commercial jet pilot and former airline instructor, and mark boyd, instructional analyst. the lack of a mayday call, kathleen, that is the point on which so many people who want to give the pilots the benefit of the doubt get hung up on. your thoughts on it? >> i don't get hung up on it at all, and i can tell you as a former airline pilot and airline instructor, i don

missing malaysian flight investigators are closely examining the pilot and his relationship to anwar ibrahim. he did an interview earlier with the wall street journal live, watch this. >> is he related to your daughter-in-law's family, and how well did you know him? >> i know after the incident i was not aware until my daughter-in-law who is now in new york, alerted me that he's related to the pilot. i know him as a person, very compassionate about justice. he's very much a family man very close to the family, and very close to the local member of parliament from our party. >> what if any significance this may have. joining us now, the former senior official of the cia phillip mud, and former spokesman for four ambassadors to the u.n., rick grinnell is with us. we have a guy who's admitting he's a relative, there had been reports he sat in the courtroom. this is the opposition leader recently sentenced to five years in prison, he may have been in that courtroom up to seven hours before he took off on that flight. does that have significance in your mind? >> it does, that's only because we ha

just hours from he took control of flight 370 the government sentenced distant relative anwar ibrahim to jail. to some, nothing, to others a motive. >> this leads to the pilot himself and co-pilot. >> also, hamid fariq, who just graduated to the 777. it is his voice last heard before the plane disappears. this photo shows him inviting two women into the cockpit for an hour of smoking and flirting. one called the encounter friendly but sleazy. >> he took her hands and said you're a creative person. >> malaysia airlines say the two pilots did not request to fly together, which suggests if this was a deliberate act one pilot would have to incapacitate the other. history shows it would not be the first time a lone wolf pulled off a mass murder. >>> back to our panel, fox news aviation analyst, former commercial jet pilot and former instructor, good to see you both back. so the lack of a may day call, kathleen, that is the point on which so much people who want to give the pilots the benefit of the doubt get hung up on. your thoughts on it? >> i don't get hung up on it at all. i can tell y

he is a member of the opposition party in malaysia, with close ties with the party's leader, anwar ibrahimhe very same day of the flight, march 7th. his friend says despite zaharie's t-shirt declaring democracy is dead, the pilot is not an extremist. as for the co-pilot, fariq abdul hamid, police searched his home looking for clues, but the scene is hardly secure. hours before investigators arrived, we watched his two brothers leave the house casually carrying out boxes of noodles and drinks. the families of passengers on that plane are closely watching every development, still holding out remote hope they could be found alive, including the family of that american passenger, a father, phillip wood, his brother saying the wait is agonizing. >> we've gone from shock and disbelief to sadness, to a little bit of anger, frankly. and i think that there's a little bit of a drive to get some answers. we're trying really hard to understand what's going on. >> reporter: this investigation is certainly intensifying. you can imagine highway these families are waiting and how painful it has become. bo

we have the connection to anwar ibrahim, who had been convicted to time in prison. that is not anything certain but shows he did certainly have a political bent. general, i want to know why and how you came by your theory and what we need to look into. and you know, what are the percentages and odds of pakistan? you were very honest, you said 50, 60, 70%, you never said definiti definitively. but you had sources who helped you draw the conclusion, and i think you were criticized. >> well, anybody can have an opinion, remember the satellite imagery that was not correct, then we found the last transponder position, and the last skin paint that pointed towards india. we never saw a turn to the south. inmarsat was giving us a northern sector and southern sector, every bit of information that came out was pointing towards the northern sector, singapore international air ways, flight 68. you lay that inmarsat sector across it with the route singapore 68 flew it was exactly on line. so all of those things to me were pointing in a direction. again, i don't know for sure. bu

captain zaharie was a public supporter of opposition party leader anwar ibrahim and a thorn in the ruling's side, a political party in control for over 50 years. zaharie attended anwar's pro democracy rallies and meetings. even more, democracy is dead t-shirt, denouncing the one party rule in malaysia. for the first time, anwar it tells cnn he did, in fact, know the pilot of the missing plane. can you describe how you know the pilot? >> well, he has attended some of the i think party meetings. and i confirm only afterwards whether he is a member of the party. >> reporter: why is that important? because just hours before malaysia airlines flight 370 took off, a court of appeals ordered anwar to prison on charges of sodomy, reversing the not guilty decision of a lower court. anwar says the sentence is a political vendetta. local press now asking, did zaharie purposely down the plane to make a political statement. is it possible that a supporter of yours would be willing to take this step in order to make a political statement on a global stage? >> it cannot be conjecture. it's grossly unfai

prime minister of malaysia, anwar ib bra him, reporting that the pilot was politically active and anwar ibrahim said that he knew the pilot and in fact that they are distant cousins but officials i've talked to do not consider this a big deal. they do not consider it a big warning sign that that tie to that political movement would have caused him to do something. that movement is not radical in any way. i think it might be a red herring at this point. >> jim sciutto, thank you very much. everyone else, stay with me. you at home, tweet me your questions. use the #370qs. >>> when we come back, should they search the home on a remote island with an airport? so ally bank really has no hidden fees on savings accounts? that's right, no hidden fees. it's just that i'm worried about, you know, "hidden things." ok, why's that? well uhhh... surprise!!! um... well, it's true. at ally there are no hidden fees. not one. that's nice. no hidden fees, no worries. ally bank. your money needs an ally. the was a truly amazing day. without angie's list, i don't know if we could have found all the services we need

interesting, particularly for malaysians, he posted videos about the malaysian opposition leader anwar ibrahim is made for a lot of political fodder in malaysian, because just hours before the plane took off, this opposition leader shall a thorn in the side of the political ruling party there. he was sentenced to jail just hours before it took off. so a lot of malaysian press are questioning whether the flight has something to do with that, although we don't see anything about that. >> insight into all of the questions people have about every passenger who was on that plane and crew member, as well. sam, thank you. good work. appreciate it. and we're flat out of time. but we're continuing this story, so stay tuned now as my so stay tuned now as my colleague, wolf, takes over. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> hello, i'm wolf blitzer reporting from washington. we have significant developments on the disappearance of flight 370. the fbi is examining the hard drives of the computers belonging to both the pilot and the co pilot. a law enforcement source tells cnn, fbi investigators also ar

prime minister of malaysia, anwar ib bra him, reporting that the pilot was politically active and anwar ibrahim said that he knew the pilot and in fact that they are distant cousins but officials i've talked to do not consider this a big deal. they do not consider it a big warning sign that that tie to that political movement would have caused him to do something. that movement is not radical in any way. i think it might be a red herring at this point. >> jim sciutto, thank you very much. everyone else, stay with me. you at home, tweet me your questions. use the #370qs. >>> when we come back, should they search the home on a remote island with an airport? [ male announcer ] this is the cat that drank the milk... [ meows ] ...and let in the dog that woke the man who drove to the control room [ woman ] driverless mode engaged. find parking space. [ woman ] parking space found. [ male announcer ] ...that secured the data that directed the turbines that powered the farm that made the milk that went to the store that reminded the man to buy the milk that was poured by the girl who loved the cat. [ m

went to a criminal trial in kuala lumpur, where the opposition leader who is a radical muslim, anwar ibrahimand sentenced to five years in jail. the pilot was in the courtroom that day. and then went right to the airport and did this flight. now, maybe it means nothing, but one must assume after 9/11 everything could mean something bad. >> pat, you're talking about political correctness, john, and pat, that is one of your topics you love to tee off on. >> well, you know what we have? that's why i'm not sure our involvement would help. we have defanged the fbi and our government agencies into believing they must be political correct. anything having to do with islamic terrorism doesn't exist. but as john pointed out, at least you ought to say, this is something you ought to explore. we can put devices, the insurance companies do in our automobiles, right? they want to track us. you don't have at this point, they don't have tracking these $150 million airplanes where they tell you where they are all the time. i will make one last point. if that plane went south and southwest, we have the singl

he took control of flight 370, the government sentenced distant relative and opposition leader anwar ibrahimto some, meaningless, to others, a motive. >> this all leads towards the cockpit, with the pilot himself, and co-pilot. >> reporter: also in focus, first officer fariq abdul hamid. he just graduated to the 777. it's his voice last heard before the plane disappears, with no sense of distress. this 2011 photo shows hamid with two women he invited into the cockpit for an hour of smoking and flirting. one called the experience friendly but sleazy. >> he took my friend's hand and was looking at her palm and she says, your hand is very krooeds, so that means you're a very creative person. >> they did not suggest to fly together, which means if this were a deliberate act, one pilot could have to incapacitate the other. it would not be the first time a lone wolf pulled off a mass murder. megyn? >> back to our panel, kathleen banks, fox news aviation analyst, and mike boyd, a fox news aviation analyst. good to see you both back. so the lack of a mayday call, kathleen. this is the point on which

he reportedly backed malaysia's opposition leader anwar ibrahim. so some new headlines have been declaring that the pilot's views were fanatical. and others asked whether those views could have actually driven us to a hijacking. well, for that kind of case you would of course have to prove a hijacking occurred. and that scenario has not been confirmed in any way at this point. in fact, foreign affairs journalist william dobson added some useful context to all of this writing in slate that malaysia's opposition leader actually is trying to defeat malaysia's authoritarian regime through elections, not terrorism, let alone revolution, and to be clear, "what we know is that the pilot of this plane is a fanatical supporter of a non-violent man who supports a pluralistic and democratic malaysia." moreover friends of the pilot tell nbc news they can't imagine their friend would take over a flight under his command. >> can you imagine him ever commandeering his own plane, putting his own passengers at risk? >> i cannot for one minute imagine him making tha

the captain was a public supporter of a party leader named anwar ibrahim.wore a democracy is dead t-shirt denouncing the ruling party in malaysia. officials are also investigating the homemade flight simulator seized from his home. police say some of those files where is deleted before the flight vanished and the fbi says deleted much closer to the takeoff date of this plane than had previously been reported. we don't yet know what was on there. there are various reports about testing landings and things like that. the pilot made a phone call eight minutes before takeoff. this much likely took place after the plane left the gate and that does go against all flight protocol. it the co-pilot, fariq hamid, joined the airline in 2007. he had 2500 flight hours on this plane. he lived with his parents. he was engaged to marry another employee for malaysia airs. the airline said he had flown the triple 7 five other times before flight 370. they confirmed this was his first flight without a check co-pilot supervising him. obviously something that the pilot they wou

. >> are you familiar with anwar ibrahim and the opposition and how that works over there and the pilots' loyalties with the opposition and having gone the trial within seven hours of taking off that day? how does that fit? i'm not saying we're looking for a necessary connection but what does it mean politically to the leader shape the pilot of this plane that's been lost was in the opposition? >> i wouldn't overinterpret that. i think the key lesson it seems to me associated with the politics of this is that this is a maturing political society. that is they haven't had the chance, the give-and-take and the battle of political parties and civil society to hone the skills necessary to do a better job of communicating in the midst of this crisis. so it's more along the lines of the fact that they haven't developed those skills because they haven't allowed that sort of opposition to play a role in society. only recently have they really had a contested election. so it's more that broader point that the government needs to move in the direction of more transparency and accountment and to al

we don't know that he was actually in the courtroom at anwar ibrahim, the opposition leader's trial,ard the five-year sentence. we believe it to be true because we're reading in their press. >> the fact that that pilot was at that muslim leader or islamic leader's trial, the week before, you know, it's interesting because i said the first report from kuala lumpur. it's not that we didn't have a opportunity, but we have to vet and there's no way to vet. >> we could put all kinds of rumors on the air, but there's a lot that all of us have broadcast that turned out to not be true. >> let's talk about crimea and what's happening in ukraine tonight, and speaking of being able to establish good sources on the ground, they intimidate journalists over there. russian troops are thick on the streets tonight. >> they absolutely are. that might have had a little something to do with the vote in the crimea because the last time a vote was held on independence, the crimea voted 54% in favor of independence from russia back in 1991. now, we have a vote that is like, looking like an arab state vote

what has been categorically ruled out is his affiliation to anwar ibrahim and also financial conversation>> mahi, thank you so much for joining us. let's discuss what we just heard with our aviation analyst, miles o'brien, pamela brown along with law enforcement analyst tom fuentes. you understand kuala lumpur, you understand the police force there. you have your own sources and they are disputing what this woman in kuala lumpur is hearing from her source. >> right. again, my sources are saying that they have -- they have no reason, nothing, evidence that shows that the pilot -- now, if a police officer that she's talking to or some small group of officers that has caused them to think that he flipped, as she said, that's not the theory that the rest of the people at the police department or the executives there believe. but i don't know exactly who she's talking to or what they are saying or what it is based on. >> right. and from all of the conversations, pamela, that you've had with fbi and other sources here in washington, the information that cnn is getting is very different. it's no

authorities so far, and as far as we know, there is no discernible link to the pkr leader, anwar heeb rah ibrahimat's your sense of what authorities think of how the malaysian officials are handling the investigation? >> well, there is a bit of concern, because there's a lot of assistance out there that they could be using, and a lot of this information and the investigation has been rather closely held. that said, once they find a plane, we have been told they're very likely to broaden it out and allow a lot of others in, including more involvement, say, from the fbi and others. >> once they find a plane, wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? >> wouldn't that be? joe johns, we appreciate it. thanks for joining us at this hour. >> really appreciate it. of course we are following the mystery of flight 370 throughout the day here on cnn. that's all for us right now at this hour. i'm john berman. >> i'm michaela pereira. "legal view" with ashleigh banfield starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> welcome to "legal view" a week and a half into an aviation police tree none of us will