Harris said the Malaysian and Australian governments should be sued for their actions, and compensation should not be for the accident but the suffering endured by the victims’ families for over 40 years.

“The families of the victims had suffered immensely the last 46 years, just so the Malaysian and Australian governments could ‘cover up’ reports that contain no secrets.

“Therefore, it is important for the Malaysian and Australian governments to compensate for such suffering,” he said in a Sabah Daily Express report, adding that this was the practice worldwide.

Harris said the now-declassified reports did not contain any matters considered to be “secret” and it could not be understood why the two governments had chosen to classify them as such.

He said the plane crash was criminal in nature since it claimed the lives of 11 people, and the Australian government was wrong in heeding the Malaysian government’s request to classify its findings as “confidential”.

The incident claimed the lives of then Sabah chief minister Fuad Stephens, state ministers Salleh Sulong, Chong Thien Vun and Peter Mojuntin, and seven others, after the GAF Nomad aircraft they were in crashed in Sembulan, Kota Kinabalu.

Harris said the excuse given by the Australian government that the Malaysian authorities requested for the report to be treated as confidential was just to protect the Nomad plane manufacturer, Government Aircraft Factories (GAF), from any form of liability and responsibility.

“Surely the Australian government, as a sovereign, democratic and civilised nation, would not resort to such criminal wrongdoing.

“By doing so, the Australian government purposely and intentionally concealed the criminal wrongdoing for the sake of nationalism and to protect sales of the aircraft,” he said.

An Australian report on the air crash released last week, following a similar report declassified by Putrajaya, found that Sabah Air was operating illegally at the time of the June 6, 1976 crash.

The report said Sabah Air had submitted a draft of its operations manual towards the end of 1975, but the document was never approved by the then civil aviation department, a federal authority.

Investigations were launched by the Malaysian authorities, GAF and the Australian department of transport, but their findings were never made public until last month.