Former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom's hearing in his money laundering trial will be broadcast live on Sunday morning 11:30 am.
This is the first time a hearing will be aired on live television, although the trial following the November 3rd coup attempt was broadcast live on the radio.
Criminal court is making final preparations for the live broadcast. Spokesperson at the Department of Judicial Administration (DJA), Faisal Adam stated that former president Yameen's hearing will be aired live on Sunday and the live feed will be given to all local channels. However, only Public Service Media (PSM) would be allowed inside the court room.
While neither the former president nor the Prosecutor General requested for the hearing to be broadcast, requests have been made in the past in other cases to air hearings on live television. However, the requests were not approved.
Under the criminal procedure code, it is allowed to broadcast the hearings.
The preliminary hearings of the case are ongoing, with the most recent hearing of the trial held on 25th April 2019.
At the first procedural hearing, 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.
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.
Former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayyoom
