MH370 PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim’s allegation that MH370’s cargo manifest had been deleted or covered-up is ‘demonstrably false’ because the government has already released the documents on May 1, said a government spokesperson.

“The leader of the Opposition has repeatedly tried to smear his own country to the international media. For example, by implying that Malaysian officials were complicit in a terrorist act regarding MH370 (in an interview published on the Daily Telegraph, April 3).

This was said by an unnamed official in a statement last night. He  added the cargo manifest allegation was just the latest attempt by Anwar to exploit the MH370 tragedy and damage Malaysia’s reputation, for personal political gain.

In an interview with ABC for its Four Corners programme released on May 19, Anwar ( right ) had claimed that sources had told him that the cargo manifest had been deleted.

“I could not verify that, the only reasonable action I could take was to raise specific questions and demand the cargo manifest,” he said in the 17-minute recording of the interview on ABC’s website .

However, it was unclear from the website or the video when the interview was conducted, whether it was before or after the cargo manifest was released alongside the MH370 preliminary report.

The portion of the interview where Anwar made allegations about the cargo manifest was not included in the final documentary on MH370 which is about 45-minutes long.

Instead, according to the transcript of the documentary on the broadcaster’s website, only portions of the interview where Anwar spoke of MH370’s captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and also lambasted the poor early response from the air force, was used in the programme.