Officials at Dhoonidhoo had attempted to bring detained MP Faris Maumoon and ex-vice president Ahmed Adeeb to capital city Malé after the Supreme Court ruling ordering their release in February, but had transferred them back to detention before the transfer, a witness statement from a senior official there has revealed.
Mohamed Niyaz, the department operations in-charge at the state’s detention facility at Dhoonidhoo island, said in a testimony to the police that officers had put both of the aforesaid individuals on to a vessel for transor to Malé before taking them back to incarceration.
A leaked copy of Niyaz’s statement has him claiming that he and his team had taken both detainees for transfer at about 12:40am on 2nd February. They were to be transported on a police vessel. Niyaaz says that the two men were taken back to detention at the orders of Chief Inspector of Police Mohamed Shareef.
Niyaz said that the men were taken to the office used for conjugal visits, and then returned to Inspector Shareef to ask him ‘what happened’. Shareef had then told Niyaz that he has been informed ‘through the internet’ of then Commissioner Police Mohamed Areef’s dismissal. Shareef had reportedly said that this led him to believe that the court order may be retracted or circumstances to that effect.
Shareef had also told sub-inspector of Police Abdulla Abdul Raheem that the two detainees cannot be brought to Malé because of the situation in the capital, and to inform them as such.
Further, according to Niyaz’s statement, Shareef had called a person on the phone before the two men were boarded onto the vessel. According to Niyaz, Shareef had asked the person whether they should ‘really take them to Malé’ or if ‘there is another way’. Niyaz did not know who the recipient of the call was.
Both Adeeb and Faris had responded to this saying that they have both been released by an order from the country’s top court and that ‘there is no reason’ for them to be further detained. Niyaz said that the two detainees were then transfered to the detention facility in Maafushi prison.
A number of similar witness statements, pertaining to the police’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Supreme Court order in early February, have surfaced on social media. They include witness testimonies from local judges, senior officers of the police, and civilians.
