DHAKA: Malaysia’s acting transport minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein has refuted a front-page report of a local newspaper which said that the co-pilot of the MH370 aircraft had made a telephone call when it was flying low near Penang.

Hishammuddin said by right, he should have been aware of it (the phone call) earlier, if the claim by the newspaper was true.

‘I cannot comment (on the newspaper report) because if it is true, we would have known about it much earlier,’ Hishammuddin, who is also defence minister, told reporters on Saturday, Bernama reported, according to The Straits Times.

He said he had adopted the approach not to confirm anything without any corroboration or verification since the beginning when flight MH370 was reported missing.

BDST: 1340 HRS, APR 13, 2014