MDP asks for meeting with jailed ex-VP Adeeb

The opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has proposed to meet former Vice President Ahmed Adheeb, serving a 33-year jail term, on behalf of its leader former President Mohamed Nasheed.

The party’s secretary-general has said that Nasheed has taken a keen interest in Adeeb’s health issue, which has now reached the United Nations as well, and that the MDP is extremely concerned as well.

The MDP has sent a letter to the Home Ministry and the Maldives Police Service in order to organize the meeting. The letter asks that the party’s parliamentary group leader Ibrahim Solih and MDP’s deputy leader Moosa Shifaz be given the opportunity to meet Adeeb.

Adeeb’s family had released a statement earlier this month claiming that Adeeb has developed an internal cyst, kidney stones, and vision impairment from glaucoma since his incarceration in 2015.

His family has accused the state of negligence in failing to provide the former vice president with adequate medical care during his isolated incarceration in Dhoonidhoo Island while the police investigated him.

Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed has filed the state’s refusal to grant former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb medical leave from incarceration with multiple branches of the UN, while it has also been filed with the Transparency Maldives and Human Rights Commission of the Maldives.

Shaheed, who once served as Foreign Minister, previously announced that he had made an appointment for Adeeb, who is serving a thirty-three-year jail sentence. The appointment was made with fellow UN Rapporteur, Dr. Dainius Pūras.

Adeeb, the youngest individual thus far to have served as vice president, was sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison for a reported assassination attempt against President Abdulla Yameen and for his role in the heavily publicized case of graft involving the state-operated Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation.