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Police seek to charge Ex-Pres Yameen and Azima Shakoor

Mariyam Malsa
07 February 2019, MVT 08:50
Former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom. PHOTO: NISHAN ALI/MIHAARU
Mariyam Malsa
07 February 2019, MVT 08:50

Maldives Police Service, on Wednesday, lodged a case at the Prosecutor General's (PG) Office against former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom and previous Legal Affairs Minister at the President's Office, Azima Shakoor for counts of money laundering and providing false information to state authorities.

In a statement issued by Maldives Police Service, it was revealed that the police are seeking to charge Yameen with laundering state funds that were found syphoned into his personal account at Maldives Islamic Bank (MIB) in relation to the embezzlement case of Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC).

The police are also filing charges against both Yameen and Azima for providing false information during their investigation.

According to statements released by the Police, the authority has found Azima to have acted as an accessory, having assisted the former president to carry out the illicit money laundering.

The police stated that Yameen had refused to hand over the MVR 1 million deposited in his MIB account by SOF private limited, circulating the sum within his accounts and deriving a profit from the transactions instead.

Yameen previously claimed that he had deposited the funds into an escrow account jointly owned by himself and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), thereby placing the embezzled money under the care of the graft watchdog.

Azima had sent documents to ACC, during her tenure, claiming that the sum was deposited to the escrow account in compliance with ACC's orders. However, it was later revealed that Azima deceived the watchdog with false documents.

Yameen and Azima were first summoned to Police Headquarters for questioning late last year.

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