High Court Judges' Panel to review rejection of Bassam's penthouses appeal case

Former President of Football Association of Maldives (FAM) Bassam Adeel Jaleel has appealed to the High Court's Panel of Judges to review the registrar's decision to reject the appeal case he submitted to the High Court in relation to Hulhumale' Magistrate's order to handover his two penthouses to the Police.

High Court said that Bassam had submitted the rejection of the case to High Court's Judge's Panel on Thursday.

On September 28, under the Hulhumale' Magistrate Court's order, Bassam was instructed to handover the two penthouses to the Police within a period of six days. The next day, Bassam had submitted a letter asking for an extension on the period until the end of the this month. Although Police initially decided to grant the extension, they later reversed their decision, ordering Bassam to clear the apartments and hand them over.

As per the order, Bassam handed over two apartments from the A Block of Hulhumale' Lot No. N2-25 to Police. However, he then appealed the Hulhumale' Court's ruling at the High Court.

Bassam is accused of purchasing the two apartments with funds FIFA had granted to assist football clubs which were struggling during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Police have earlier said that Bassam paid USD 1 million from FAM funds to Amin Construction to purchase the flats. However, the equivalent amount of Maldivian rufiya was not paid back to FAM by Amin Construction, and instead documents had been forged to conceal this.

Police further said that in order to make it appear that it had received the funds from Amin Construction, FAM had taken a loan from another company, drawing receipts to indicate it had been from Amin Construction. Based on this, Police suspect efforts had been made to pass off the funds for purchasing the flats paid to Amin as a dollar exchange transaction.