DDCom's re-enacted video shows red car waiting outside as Rilwan reached home on night of disappearance
In 2019, DDCom confirmed that the journalist had been killed by an as yet unidentified extremist group
A screengrab from the re-enactment video publicized by DDCom; Rilwan was last seen on 8 August 2014
The Commission on Deaths and Disappearances (DDCom) on Thursday publicized a re-enactment video in its investigation into the disappearance and murder of journalist Rilwan Abdulla.
The 'four-minute video' was posted on the commission’s Facebook page, and shows Rilwan’s movements on the night of his disappearance.
Rilwan was last seen purchasing a ticket to the Hulhumalé ferry from capital city Malé, on 8 August 2014.
While these previously publicized footages were included in DDCom’s video, it also shows a re-enactment of what is believed to have happened after Rilwan reached his apartment block in Hulhumalé.
It was previously reported that Rilwan was forced at knifepoint into a red car as he reached home. The re-enactment video shows a car parked outside his apartment building, and a man being pushed inside it. While the car takes off in a hurry, the backdoor is still open and a man in a motorcycle is seen following it; the assailants accidentally dropped the knife at the scene of the crime.
Police only confirmed Rilwan’s abduction two years after his disappearance, in 2016. There had been attempts to cover up the abduction prior to that, including by then Immigration Controller Hassan Ali who is accused of working with two officers from the police intelligence unit, to falsify travel documents in Rilwan’s name to make it appear that the missing journalist had died after leaving the country to participate in a conflict overseas.
In 2019, DDCom confirmed that Rilwan had been killed by an as yet unidentified extremist group.
While no meaningful progress have been shared in the investigation, the commission back in February called for public assistance in acquiring information relating to a key piece of evidence in question -the knife- dropped on the road by one of the assailants.
The commission has offered an incentive of MVR 500,000 for any member of the public who may provide additional information about the knife, or in relation to the enforced disappearance and murder of Rilwan.
Two of the men accused of abducting Rilwan was acquitted in 2018; one of these suspects is the owner of the red car believed to have been used to abduct the journalist, with investigators saying that DNA analysis of hairs lifted from the trunk of the car matched that of Rilwan’s mother.
DDCom ended the video by appealing to the public once again, to come forward with any information relating to the Rilwan's abduction.
The presidential commission, back in December 2018, said that investigations confirmed links between Rilwan’s murder and two other high profile murders in the country; the 2012 murder of parliamentarian Dr. Afrasheem Ali, and the 2017 stabbing of Rilwan’s best friend and democracy activist Yameen Rasheed.
