The Prosecutor General (PG) on Thursday presented the names of eight witnesses to testify against former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayyoom in his money laundering trial.
Among the eight witnesses are two Tourism Ministers during Yameen’s presidency, Ahmed Adeeb and Moosa Zameer.
Both Zameer and Adeeb has previously fulfilled the role of Vice President of Yameen’s party, Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and were close allies of the former president. While Ahmed Adeeb is currently serving out his sentence under house arrest after being convicted of attempting to assassinate the president among several other crimes, Moosa Zameer recently resigned as the Vice President of PPM and moved away from politics.
At the first procedural hearing held at the Criminal Court on Thursday over Yameen’s money-laundering charges, the Prosecutor General presented in detail the charges against the former president. The PG attorney, Mohamed Alim stated that two cheques worth US$ one million issued by SOF Private Limited were deposited into President Yameen’s saving account at Maldives Islamic Bank (MIB), which was later moved to Yameen’s General Investment account at the same bank. SOF Pvt Ltd is said to have embezzled funds received by Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) in the biggest corruption scandal witnessed by the country.
An escrow account was later set up between President Yameen and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to keep the funds in question until the end of investigation. However, the funds that were deposited into the escrow account were not the funds in Yameen’s account, with the deposited US$ one million having originated from Yameen’s tourism Minister Moosa Zameer’s account, said PG attorney Alim.
Yameen’s failure to transfer the original funds into the escrow account and instead depositing funds from another source can be assumed to be an attempt to launder the original funds which are suspected to be illegal funds, said the PG attorney. If the money laundering charge against Yameen is proven, he will receive a sentence of 5-15 years in prison.
The prosecution listed President of ACC Hassan Luthufy, Vice President Muawwiz Rasheed, former Managing Director of MMPRC Abdulla Ziyath, government assigned board members to Bank of Maldives Mohamed Shareef and Mohamed Luwaiz, and a man named Mohamed Waseem Ismail as witnesses who will be testifying against the former president.
According to PG attorney, Mohamed Waseem Ismail purchased a land from Moosa Zameer for US$ two million, out of which US$ one million was given to the former president upon his request by Zameer, said Alim. Zameer was not aware that Yameen’s intent in securing the funds from Zameer was to place it in the escrow account in place of the original funds in Yameen’s MIB account, added the attorney.
The prosecution submitted the escrow account agreement made by the ACC, the ACC investigative report into the case, MMPRC audit report, President Yameen’s statements given to the police and ACC, and relevant transaction cheques, slips, bank statements, along with Yameen’s financial statement as evidence.
The prosecution also requested to include two additional witnesses from whom the police had obtained statements earlier this month. The two witnesses were not listed earlier as they had been on the run from the police, therefore their statements could not be obtained. The judge did not make a decision on accepting the two new witnesses at Thursday’s hearing.
Speaking at the hearing, former president Yameen stated that his charges were not clear to him, with his lawyer Shiyaz explaining that the transactions that prompted a money-laundering charge are unknown. He further questioned why the funds received from SOF Private Limited were deemed as illegal.
No senior members of PPM or party supporters were present at the Criminal Court during today’s hearing.
