KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Hishammuddin Hussein’s wife is a princess. His cousin is prime minister, and he’s been mentioned as a possible successor. But right now, as the face of his country’s effort to find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, he is the man who has delivered more than two weeks of frustrating news about one of the most confounding searches in aviation history.
The bespectacled 52-year-old defense minister has come under fire for just about everything that’s gone wrong with the unprecedented hunt — from delayed radar tracking data to confusion over when police searched the homes of the missing plane’s pilots. His handling of the search could affect not only his own future but that of Malaysia’s ruling party, which has been struggling to stay in power after six decades in charge.
