High Court overturns ruling to release Sealife MD on bail

The High Court has overturned the Criminal Court’s decision to release the Managing Director of Sealife Global who is being charged over the Sealife housing scam, on bail.

In the conviction issued on Monday, the High Court revealed that Ahmed Moosa Mohamed, native to Thinadhoo island in Vaavu atoll, is deemed a flight risk and ordered for his re-arrest.

With this ruling, the earlier one to keep him remanded pending the outcome of the trial will be in effect.

Speaking at High Court in connection to the case, the state attorneys had revealed that Mohamed has a record of attempting to flee and that he had been in hiding in the international arena as well.

Mohamed was granted his request to be released on bail by the Criminal Court on October 20. The decision to grant Mohamed release on bail was issued by Judge Hassan Saeed, who was also the judge who ruled to grant bail for former Tourism Minister Ali Waheed whose guarantor was signed as Assad Ali. Mohamed proposed his two siblings, younger sister Afeefa Moosa and elder sister Mariyam Naeema as his guarantors.

While Naeema revealed that she hadn’t known Mohamed “was in hiding”, the state prosecutors questioned how someone who didn’t know the history of the accused, can sign on as a guarantor for his bail release.

Mohamed, native to Thinadhoo island in Vaavu atoll, who faces allegations of defrauding nearly 300 people after collecting payments from them for apartments allocated within the first phase of a housing project, was extradited to the Maldives on March 24. Interpol confirmed Mohamed’s arrest from neighboring Sri Lanka, to the Maldives Police Service (MPS) during February 2021 in connection to the scam.

The initial agreement between the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and the government was to reimburse the nearly 300 tenants who had paid for apartments in 3,000 housing units. Most of the tenants had given both the booking fee as well as the down payment.

The five-year project between the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and Sealife Global was announced back in 2014 and is a joint venture between the company and two Dubai firms. Under the agreement, Sealife was tasked with developing 3,000 housing units in Hulhumalé, they had earlier announced several dates on when the flats would be completed, however, they failed to start any work on the construction of these flats.

Mohamed fled the country after issues in launching the project, without reimbursing the tenants, in turn violating agreements made with locals to sell properties being constructed.

Maldivian police pursued an Interpol red notice to locate Mohamed during April 2019. The accused is a close associate of now incarcerated former President Abdulla Yameen and was believed to be living in Sri Lanka when the red notice accusing him of defraud and forgery, was out in late April 2019.

During earlier hearings, the 42 charges raised on the defendant were heard. Mohamed denied all charges against him and requested for time to detail his responses to the allegations as well as to submit evidence to back his claims.