Former President Abdulla Yameen has backtracked on earlier claims that he received large sums of money at home from his deputy Ahmed Adeeb.
At a press conference on Monday night, after having evaded the public eye since having to evict the President’s Office, President Yameen said he has never received illicit funds.
Yameen is going back on an earlier claim that he did in fact receive hard cash at his home which he believes to have been illicitly acquired. This cash was later linked to an embezzlement of USD 80 million. Yameen said he believed the funds were gifts from businessmen that supported his policies.
The president claimed ignorance of the embezzlement and placed blame on former vice president Ahmed Adeeb, who is now under house arrest on medical discharge but was sentenced to a decades-long sentence.
“I have never said I received any cash that was not ḥalāl. I said that I received funds and that they were brought to my house, but I did not know whether or not the funds were legal. I do not mince words, nor do I speak on things I do not know”, Yameen said at Monday’s conference.
While Yameen claims as such, he said at a conference on August 14th, part of a gathering held to open an assembly site for the Progressive Party of Maldives, that the funds were in fact ‘not rightfully acquired’, again shifting blame on Adeeb.
Yameen has on several occasions denied any involvement in said corruption scandal, although Adeeb said at a recent court hearing that Yameen had approved of most projects through which funds were embezzled.
The Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation, which was overseen by Adeeb during the time of the embezzlement and headed by individuals with whom he had personal relationships, was officially made the recipient of all rent and lease fees from operators in the Maldives. This decision was made by presidential decree, signed by Yameen during his tenure.
Adeeb claims he was used as a scapegoat to hide Yameen’s own theft of state funds and that the Anti-Corruption Commission only having found 10 resort deals in which he himself has been incriminated attests to the fact that he did not mastermind the scheme.
