MH370: France opens judicial enquiry for manslaughter - Embassy

Initial reports by AFP have stated that this is standard practice since French nationals were on of the ill-fated plane.

Damien Syed, the French embassy in Malaysia’s Head of Press Section, confirms the report and said that it is merely a preliminary enquiry.

“It is very common for France to do so. Every time a citizen is killed abroad the French prosecutors will usually open a preliminary enquiry to research the French citizens,” he said.

In a phone interview with Astro AWANI, Malaysian lawyer, Datuk Mohd Haziq Pillay said that the judicial investigation is premature as there is no evidence about what happened to the mysterious disappearing flight.

“I am not against the judicial inquiry, however the French prosecutors need to realize that we are going through tough times at the moment, and they should not speculate,” he exclaimed.

He adds that for a judicial inquiry for manslaughter to be brought there are two conditions to be met- namely there needs to be death and they would need to prove gross negligence for the plane’s “crash”.

Datuk Pillay also feels that if such an inquiry continues it will bring damage to Malaysia and the role the country plays internationally.

Meanwhile, Civil law and syariah law practitioner Nizam Bashir Abdul Kariem Bashir, finds the judicial inquiry ridiculous.

“They would need to justify criminal evidence, however we can’t pin point where the fault lies at this juncture,” he said laughing.

“There needs to be circumstantial evidence,” he adds.

It is however still unclear in the initial AFP report who the judicial investigation will be carried out on.

Nizam said that if, there were links to to the individuals who were on the plane and the deaths of the French nationals, and if such a investigation were carried out it could possibly be against the airport officials.

The head of Interpol have said the disappearance of the plane was not likely the result of a terrorist attack.

"The more information we get, the more we are inclined to conclude it was not a terrorist incident," Ronald Noble said in the eastern French city of Lyon, where Interpol is headquartered.

Four French nationals have been identified as passengers on the ill-fated MH370 flight.

52-year-old Laurence Wattrelos and children Hadrien, 17 and Ambre, 14, were reportedly returning to Beijing where they lived after a holiday at Club Med Cherating beach resort in Pahang.