Family of missing journalist Ahmed Rilwan has called for criminal investigations against former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb and Supreme Court Justice Abdulla Didi.

Rilwan’s family made the appeal to the presidential commission on Murders and Enforced Disappearances.

The appeal comes days after it was revealed that the Supreme Court justice had been involved in the release of the suspects in Rilwan’s abduction.

The statement expressed concern over the delay in justice, and emphasized that the reason for this is because of the “political influence” within the judiciary.

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) had read out a letter from the police, at its investigative meeting on Justice Didi last week. It said that a suspect in its Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) corruption investigation had approached Didi after interactions with a known criminal, seeking to release suspects arrested in the abduction of journalist Ahmed Rilwan.

The police noted that Didi had released Mohamed Suaid after this exchange, and provided details of the judge presiding over Abdulla Haisham’s remand hearing; Haisham is to have been released five days later.

Rilwan was last seen purchasing a ticket to Hulhumalé at the ferry terminal in capital city Malé on August 8th, 2014.

Police confirmed Rilwan’s abduction two years later, in August 2016. It had revealed that one of the men caught trailing Rilwan on CCTV footage had been identified as Mohamed Suaid. He was arrested but released by the Criminal Court in November 2014.

Shortly after, he is to have left the Maldives for Syria with the brother of one of the suspects in the case, Aalif Rauf. Both are to have “died in battle.”

Aalif and Mohamed Nooradeen were charged in the case, but were acquitted last year citing “insufficient evidence.”

Adeeb has previously stated that President Abdulla Yameen had stopped the cabinet from investigating the Rilwan's disappearance.