MALAYSIA-Khalid Abu-Bakar, Malaysian Inspector General of Police, said on Wednesday that the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was a criminal investigation.

He said in Kuala Lumpur at a news conference at the Royal Malaysian Police Quality and Innovation Seminar 2014, that some details could not be revealed at the moment because it could impact on a future prosecution.

Abu-Bakar said police were investigating based on the four areas of focus which included personal and psychological problems, sabotage and hijacking.

“You have to understand that there are things we cannot share as it is a criminal investigation but we are investigating based on the four areas of focus,” he said.

Abu-Bakar said until now there had been about 170 statements recorded from family members of the passengers and crew on board the missing jetliner.

He said the backgrounds of the 227 passengers, two-thirds of whom were from China, had been checked by local and international investigators and cleared of the four possible scenarios of sabotage, hijacking, personal or psychological problems.

Abu Bakar said police were also investigating the cargo and food served on the plane to eliminate the possibility of poisoning of passengers and crew.

He said investigators were trawling through the backgrounds of 53 year old pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, along with examining whether a passenger could have hijacked the plane and flown it to the remote southern Indian Ocean.

He said, however, an accident had also not been fully ruled out.

Abu-Bakar said the investigators had some clues of what happened, but they would not reveal anything as the investigation was ongoing.

He stressed that “Investigations may go on and on but we have to clear every little thing, at the end of the investigations, we may not even know the real cause. We may not even know the reason for this incident,’’ he said. (Xinhua/NAN)