Military Colonel Ahmed ‘Papa’ Fayaz’s family has alleged that authorities are blatantly lying to them in order to justify not allowing family visits.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Fayaz’s family said that the Maldives Correctional Services say they cannot allow him family visits on the grounds of the ongoing state of emergency.

“Colonel Fayaz, despite his long service to the state and being entitled to it, was not given special protection and rights in prison. They have cut family visits claiming that he is now on that list. This is a lie” the statement says.

Fayaz’s family condemned the actions of the Maldives Correctional Services ‘in the strongest of terms’ and called on authorities to allow them to visit him.

According to procedures, the Maldives Correctional Services can bar people from visiting those that have been given ‘special protection’ while in incarceration.

Those given ‘special protection’ are usually entitled to other allowances and laxed restrictions in prison, which Fayaz had not been entitled to before the declaration of the state of emergency.

The family’s statement also says that they had previously been restricted from visiting Fayaz, and the long serving military officer has been kept in squalid conditions and provided unsanitary food and water.

Colonel Fayaz was the head of the Special Protection Group, and thus in charge of the president’s security, had been detained following a reported assassination attempt on President Abdulla Yameen.

In 2015, a ‘bomb’ had gone off aboard the ‘Finifenmaa’, the name of a speed boat operated by the President’s Office.

The negligible blast radius and the impact of it, which resulted in some injuries to those aboard, has caused the legitimacy of it being an ‘assassination attempt’ to be questioned.

Fayaz was detained in the military barracks without his family being informed, which caused them to file a missing person’s report. He was sentenced to two years in prison in June 2016.