Half of all murders in the last sixteen years was under the watch of incumbent President Abdulla Yameen, says MP Mohamed Ameeth.

Ameeth said this in a post on his Twitter account, where he attached a screenshot of a message where President Yameen expresses his commitment to ending Maldives’ moratorium on the death penalty.

“29 [of 61] people were mercilessly killed in the past four years” the post says, which also asks if claims of reinstating the death penalty has paved way for peace.

President Yameen’s message, which he posted on a group-thread on instant messaging application Viber, said that the ‘delay in administration sentence’ was due to no cases having ‘exhausted the long legal path yet’.

Housing Minister Azleen Ahmed had this week said that the government has made all the preparations for carrying out the death penalty.

Azleen said that the Maldives is likely to see its first capital killing in over sixty years this coming September.