馬警方稱冒用護照的伊朗人並非恐怖分子大綱

A man travelling on a stolen passport on a missing Malaysian jet was a young Iranian who is not believed to have terrorist links, Malaysian police say.

They say the 19-year-old - named as Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad - was probably migrating to Germany.

Investigations are continuing into a second man using stolen documents.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing on Saturday, after taking off with 239 on board. The search has been widened.

Experts have said the presence of two people with stolen passports on a plane was a breach of security, but is relatively common in a region regarded as a hub for illegal migration.

Malaysia's police chief Inspector Gen Khalid Abu Bakar said the young Iranian was "not likely to be a member of a terrorist group", adding that the authorities were in contact with his mother in Germany, who had been expecting her son to arrive in Frankfurt.

Without a trace

The authorities' statement supports an account given to the BBC by a young Iranian in Kuala Lumpur who says he was a school-friend of one of the men who boarded the airliner using a stolen passport.

He says the friend and another Iranian, also using a stolen passport, stayed with him before taking the Malaysia Airlines flight, and that they had hoped to settle in Europe.

Reports from Thailand suggest that the tickets of the two men, routing them to Amsterdam via Beijing, had been bought through a Thai travel agent and an Iranian middleman.

Officials say they still have no idea what went wrong with the aircraft.

None of the debris and oil slicks spotted in the water so far have proved to be linked to the disappearance.

Four areas of investigation were focused on the possibility of human agency, the police chief said: hijacking, sabotage, psychological problems or personal problems with passengers or crew.

The passengers on the flight were of 14 different nationalities. Two-thirds were from China, while others were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

At least 40 ships and 34 aircraft are taking part in the search in the seas off Vietnam and Malaysia.

Search teams from Australia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, New Zealand and the United States of America are assisting.

Malaysian civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said the search was being conducted "on both sides" of the peninsula.

The area has been expanded from 50 nautical miles from where the plane had disappeared - over waters between Malaysia and Vietnam - to 100 nautical miles (115 miles; 185km)據英國廣播公司（BBC）報道，馬來西亞警方3月11日稱，持竊取護照乘坐MH370班機乘客是一名伊朗青年男子，與恐怖分子沒有任何聯繫。

馬來西亞警方表示，這位19歲的伊朗男子名叫Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad，可能是想偷渡到德國去。

對另一名持假護照登機者的身份調查工作仍在進行中。

搭乘239名乘客的馬航MH370班機在3月8日從吉隆坡飛往北京的途中突然失蹤。目前，搜救規模正在不斷擴大。

有專家此前表示，兩人持偷竊護照登上班機的情況構成對航空安全的威脅，但是在一個非法移民猖獗的中心地區，這似乎也很正常，不必大驚小怪。

馬來西亞警察總長Khalid Abu Bakar將軍稱，這名年輕的伊朗男子“不太可能是恐怖組織的成員”，並表示，有關部門已與他在德國的母親取得聯繫，後者還一直期盼着與兒子在法蘭克福機場相見。

杳無音訊

馬來西亞當局的聲明證實了此前一位伊朗年輕男子在吉隆坡向BBC的陳述。他聲稱是其中一位使用假護照登機者的同學。

他表示，在登上馬來西亞航班前，他的同學和還有另外一個伊朗人住在一塊。他們倆人都希望能到到歐洲落戶。

來自泰國的報道表明，這兩人從家泰國旅行社和伊朗籍的中間人手裏購得經由北京飛往阿姆斯特丹的機票。

官員稱，他們也不清楚飛機到底哪裏出了故障。

目前，在水中發現的碎片和油跡都未被證實與失蹤的飛機有關。

馬亞西亞警察總長稱，現在正集中調查四種人員犯罪的可能性：劫機，蓄意破壞，心理問題，乘客或者機組成員的個人問題。

這架飛機上的乘客來自14個不同的國家，三分之二的人來自中國，剩下的來自北美，歐洲和亞洲的其它地區。

在越南和馬來西亞海域，至少40艘艦船和34架飛機參與了搜救。

參與搜救的國家主要有澳大利亞、中國、泰國、印尼、新加坡、越南、菲律賓和新西蘭和美國也協助搜救。

馬來西亞民航局長Azharuddin Abdul Rahman表示，搜救工作在相關半島的“兩面展開”。

搜救區域已經擴大到了飛機失蹤地域方圓50海里——包括馬來西亞和越南水域——到100海里。