The Chinese government ruled out any notion that any of its citizens aboard missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 were involved in its disappearance.  The announcement doused speculation from some quarters about possible terrorists from the embittered Uighur Muslim community in China’s far northwest.

“China has conducted a thorough investigation of all the passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, and has found no evidence of any destructive behavior,” Said China’s Ambassador to Malaysia Huang Huikang in Kuala Lumpur.  “We can exclude the Chinese passengers of suspicion of engaging in acts of terror and destruction.”

One of the missing passengers is a Uighur artist, Maimaitijiang Abula.  But Huang said background checks were done on all of the Chinese passengers and that “there is no evidence to prove that he engaged in any terrorist or destructive activities.”

Six Australians are also among the 239 people on MH370, which was supposed to have gone from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing early in the morning on 8 March, but disappeared about an hour into the voyage.  American security officials say that the plane made a turn to the west, and that the maneuver was carried out because someone changed the flight computer located between the pilot and copilot.  The Chinese statement and the American suspicions focus the investigation onto the pilot and copilot, or someone else on the flight crew.