Malaysia's navy has fought off a pirate attack on a tanker off its east coast in the South China Sea, the International Maritime Bureau said Sunday.

The Malaysian force was assisted by the Indonesian and Singaporean navies in fending off the attack late Saturday, said Noel Choong, head of the IMB's Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Center.

Malaysian police on Friday captured three men allegedly involved in militant activities, including a senior leader trained by the extremist group Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, an official said.

Police deputy inspector general Bakri Zinin said the trio, aged between 29 and 31, were arrested during an anti-terror swoop in the town of Sandakan in Sabah state on Borneo island.

Malaysian courts have charged four, including a father and his son, over the gang-rape of two teenage girls, police said Friday, in a case that has sparked outrage in the Muslim-majority country.

The four, including two minors, were all charged on Wednesday with committing rape "in front of others" at their village in the northern state of Kelantan, said Lai Yong Heng, the state's director of crime investigation.

Malaysia is hunting for a group of machete-wielding pirates who hijacked a tanker off its eastern coast, stealing a million liters of oil, in the latest in a spate of attacks in its waters, an official said Thursday.

Pirates hijacked the Malaysia-registered tanker MT Budi Mesra Dua last Saturday off Bintulu in the oil-rich Sarawak state as the ship sailed from neighboring Singapore.

The Bangladesh coastguard on Wednesday rescued a stricken boat in the Bay of Bengal packed with 300 nationals who were trying to flee to Malaysia, an official said.

At least four bodies were on board the Malaysia-bound boat, which was being towed to a Bangladeshi island in rough seas, the official and one of the passengers told Agence France Presse.

Frustrated Chinese relatives of passengers onboard missing Flight MH370 Wednesday visited the offices of Malaysia Airlines in Beijing to confront officials after regular briefings by the airline were halted.

The relatives had previously been given regular updates on the search for the plane by airline officials at a hotel in Beijing. But the briefings were cancelled last month, to the fury of many who say they no longer have any way of making their voices heard.

Australia on Tuesday said it had chosen a Dutch firm to help it map the Indian Ocean floor as the search for missing flight MH370 heads deeper under water.

Netherlands-based Fugro Survey will help a Chinese military vessel survey the ocean bed as part of the next stage of the quest for the Malaysia Airlines plane which vanished three months ago, the Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC), said.

Several families of those aboard Flight MH370 on Sunday launched a drive to raise $5 million to reward any insider who comes forward and resolves the mystery of the plane's disappearance exactly three months ago.

The "Reward MH370" campaign launches on fundraising website Indiegogo and aims to raise at least $5 million "to encourage a whistleblower to come forward with information", the families said in a press release.

A body found on a Malaysian island is that of British tourist Gareth Huntley who went missing during a jungle hike, police said Saturday.

Zakaria Ahmad, head of crime investigation in the eastern state of Pahang, said DNA results showed that the body discovered on Tioman Wednesday was the 34-year-old.

A Malaysian rescue team searching for missing British tourist Gareth Huntley found a body on Wednesday near a conservation project where he had served as a volunteer, a fire and rescue official said.

Huntley, 34, went missing on May 27 during a jungle trek on Tioman Island off the eastern coast of Malaysia, sparking a major manhunt and expressions of deep concern in Britain, including from Prime Minister David Cameron.