CLAIMS by a Malay newspaper that a 35-year-old Uighur man from China’s troubled autonomous Muslim province was on Flight MH370 may be looked at in new light after being written off as irrelevant.

An email sent to journalists, supposedly from representatives from the Uighur separatist movement, claimed for responsibility for the Malaysia Airlines flight’s disappearance.

The emails were dismissed as opportunistic and troublemaking.

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Malaysia’s Harian Metro claimed the man had taken flight-simulator training in Sweden in 2005.

Other reports said the man was a member of a group of harmless Chinese artists who were returning home from a painting and calligraphy exhibition.

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Malaysian police hosed down suspicion, but claims by Prime Minister Najib Razak that the plane could be have disappeared on a corridor up to Kazakhstan will attract new interest.

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The Uighur heartland stretches from western China to Kyrgyzstan, directly beneath the “Kazakhstan‎ corridor” to which Mr Razak referred.

China blames Uighurs for two bloodthirsty and deadly mass knife attacks on innocent Chinese citizens within the last fortnight.

Uighur rebel Abdullah Mansour told Reuters from an undisclosed location Pakistan in recent days that the intent was to bring the Holy Fight to China.

“The fight against China is our Islamic responsibility and we have to fulfil it,” he said.

Pakistan is also along Mr Razak’s so-called Kazakhstan‎ corridor.

Malaysia’s continued interest in searching the Andaman Sea, far west of MH370’s route to China, is intriguing.

If the plane had turned west from the South China Sea, then turned northwest towards Kazakhstan, it would have taken a direct path over Uighur heartland — but also over many other countries.

In December, the US released the last of three of 22 Uighurs that had been detained in Guantánamo Bay since 2001, after being detained for fighting with the Taliban. The men were taken by Slovakia, because China would not take them.