Ex-pres Yameen named as witness against Azima Shakoor

The State has named former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayyoom as a witness against former Legal Affairs Minister Azima Shakoor.

This is the first time the State has named the former president as a witness.

After Yameen's tenure as president ended, he was summoned to the Police Headquarters for questioning over money laundering allegations. At the time, Azima acted as his attorney. Criminal charges have now been raised against Azima in connection to a money-laundering case involving President Yameen.

Charged with giving false information to official authorities, and aiding money laundering, the first preliminary hearing of Azima's case was conducted at the Criminal court earlier on Thursday. During the hearing, the details of the charges against Azima were relayed by the state attorneys.

The attorneys from the Prosecutor General's Office said Azima gave false information to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) while she was the Legal Affairs Minister, over a deposit of US$ 1 million into President Yameen's personal account from SOF Pvt. Ltd.

SOF Pvt. Ltd is heavily involved in the embezzlement of sate funds through Maldives Marketing and PR Corporation, MMPRC.

The state attorneys said the legal opinion to move the US$ 1 million in Yameen's account into an escrow account set up between the former president and the ACC was issued by Azima due to the ongoing ACC investigations. However, the fund were transferred to an investment account at Maldives Islamic Bank (MIB) against the agreed terms.

Although US$ 1 million was deposited into the escrow account, the source of the funds were covered up. President Yameen has been charged with money laundering due to the move.

Azima is being charged with aiding money laundering activities for hiding the source of the funds that were deposited into the escrow account after obtaining a document from BML. It has been revealed that the fund originated from then Tourism Minister Moosa Zameer.

Former ACC President Hassan Luthufee who was the ACC head when the agreement was enacted, and then-Vice President of ACC Muawwiz Rasheed have also been named as witnesses against Azima, in addition to the two former tourism ministers Moosa Zameer and Ahmed Adeeb. Former Managing Director of MMPRC, Abdula Ziyath will also testify against Azima.

While several documents were also submitted as evidence, including bank statements , cheques and letters from the President's Office and Bank of Maldives, the Prosecutor General requested to conceal parts of the bank statements and cheques. The presiding judge ordered to omit the information on third parties from the documents and to only keep what is relevant to Azima's case.

The judge granted a period of ten days for both the prosecution and defense to submit all requests and documents. The judge will make a decision on the submissions during the hearing scheduled for next month, and will decide if trial will be commenced.

Azima was accompanied by a lawyer at Thursday's hearing, although she represented herself at the hearing. Two attorneys on her legal team who are also part of President Yameen's legal team removed themselves from the case.