Maldives Immigration has confirmed that the number of passports withheld over the abduction and gruesome murder of Minivan News Journalist Ahmed Rilwan, has reached 15.

Up until Tuesday, the number of passports withheld remained 14, with an additional passport having been withheld on Wednesday.

The passports were withheld upon the request of the presidential inquiry commission on deaths and enforced disappearances.

While those with a withheld passport will not be able to leave the country, names of those who had their passports withheld were not disclosed.

Rilwan was last seen purchasing a ticket to the Hulhumalé ferry from capital city Malé, on 8 August 2014. Two years later in 2016, the police had confirmed that Rilwan was adducted and that one of the men caught trailing Rilwan on CCTV footage had been identified as Mohamed Suaid, who was arrested but released by the Criminal Court in November 2014. Him and Aalif Rauf, a brother of one of the suspects in the case had been pronounced dead in battle, after having left to Syria shortly after.

Earlier this week, commission President Husnu Al Suood had confirmed that Rilwan was abducted, taken onboard a boat and killed at sea by religious extremists.

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) had begun investigating High Court Judge Hassan Ali based on the report compiled by the commission, in Rilwan’s case. The report indicates that Hassan Ali, during his time as Immigration Controller, had met with two Intelligence police officers who wanted to discuss concealing Rilwan’s murder by forging a passport to prove to authorities that Rilwan had flown to Syria for battle.