Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) on Sunday filed at the police to launch raids and an investigation into President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom's residences, in connection to comments made by his jailed former deputy, Ahmed Adeeb, at the Criminal Court earlier the same day.
At the hearing of his corruption trial over the undue lease of 10 islands for tourism development, Adeeb had claimed that the funds embezzled from state-owned Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC), which made headlines as the largest corruption scandal in Maldives' history in 2015, were taken straight to the president’s then residence 'Dhoovehi', where over USD 80 million was counted in a specified "count room".
Adeeb had further alleged that after the corruption scandal was uncovered, USD 1 million of the embezzled money was deposited to the personal account of President Yameen at Maldives Islamic Bank (MIB).
In the wake of Adeeb's statement, the main opposition MDP revealed in a statement that it had filed at Maldives Police Service to conduct a criminal investigation into the allegations against Yameen. The party stated that the president's residences must be inspected, and on behalf of the joint opposition, called on the police to take on the case with utmost seriousness.
While Adeeb maintains that he is being framed for the MMPRC scandal, President Yameen has on numerous occasions asserted that he was not aware of the embezzlement until the case surfaced in 2015. He had publicly acknowledged the allegations of receiving the embezzled money in August 2017, claiming that while he had not known about Adeeb's corruption before, “the money that entered my house was not lawful”.
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