Until flight recorders and wreckage has been found the freight manifest is irrelevant...
I beg to differ on this. At this stage unlawful interference is about as likely as some technical malfunction / crew incapacitation. To every crime there is a motive, and clues to such motive
could be in the cargo manifest. There are many valuable items shipped on aircraft, not only gold... On the other hand if there is nothing in the manifest that would raise a red flag, that may tick of one possibility as very unlikely. Of course there may be very good reasons for not making this information public, but on the balance that is more likely if there is something to it - hence all the wild speculation.
An excellent post by WillowRun_6_3 a page earlier summarized the implications (
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...ml#post8375148).