Police delayed confirming Rilwan's abduction despite interrogating one of the suspects in 2014
Journalist Ahmed Rilwan was last seen on 8th August 2014
Mohamed Suaid was arrested in September 2014 and interrogated in October
Police delayed confirming journalist Ahmed Rilwan's abduction despite arresting and interrogating one of the suspects in September 2014, reports Maldives Independent.
The English-only online news source noted that, despite this, Maldives Police Service was only able to confirm Rilwan's abduction in April 2016.
Citing a credible police source, Maldives Independent said that police knew Rilwan 'was followed before his abduction', adding that the individual that followed him, Mohamed Suaid, was arrested in late September 2014 'with evidence of hostile surveillance'.
Further citing the police investigation, which Maldives Independent claimed to have seen, it said that Suaid 'was interrogated on October 1, 2014 and accused of lying when he denied following RIlwan'.
"Suaid was released by the criminal court in November 2014 and he left the country in January 2015 with Azlif Rauf, a former soldier charged in connection with the murder of moderate religious scholar Afrasheem Ali", said the report.
Suaid had listed his 'boss' Aalif Rauf as his contact when arrested in September 2014, despite his family residing in Malé. Aalif is the brother of Azlif, and one of the two suspects acquitted in Rilwan's case earlier this month.
Following his release, Sauid allegedly traveled to Syria in January 2015- with Azlif; both have allegedly died after joining the internal conflict according to family, this is yet to confirmed by authorities.
As noted earlier, police refused to confirm Rilwan's abduction until April 2016, when they released video footage of Rilwan being followed. This footage was not used as evidence during trial.
Maldives Independent also noted that Aalif and the second suspect, Nooradeen were arrested shortly after police began 'looking into an attempt at forging Rilwan’s passport in March 2016 to make it appear as if he had left or was out of the country'.
While Suaid and Azlif are to have left the country in January 2015, then tourism minister Ahmed Adeeb was in charge of the defence ministry at the time. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Adeeb denied any links to the two and accused the criminal court of allowing them to flee by releasing their passports.
He also accused incumbent President Abdulla Yameen of actively obstructing the investigation into Rilwan's disappearance. Al Jazeera's 2016 documentary 'Stealing Paradise' showed that the President had asked his then home minister Umar Naseer not to be 'too overwhelmed' with Rilwan's case.
