Gasim Hassan murder: a victim of mugging gone wrong

59-year-old taxi driver, Gasim Hassan, was the victim of a mugging gone wrong.

Maldives Police Service (MPS) revealed this at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, adding that his attacker has a history of drug abuse and mugging.

Gasim Hassan was stabbed to death on December 4. While a suspect, Adham Mohamed, was arrested on December 19, he had confessed to the crime the next day.

While police have previously revealed that the clothes the attacker wore when he committed the murder were recovered in the investigation and that forensic evidence “has been the key to solving the case,” officers on Tuesday recounted how the murder took place; using information gathered from both his confession and evidence collected in the investigation.

As such, officers said that Adham Mohamed was in the capital for a drug rehabilitation programme. However, he is to have been under the influence when he headed to Hulhumalé on December 4, where he is to have taken more drugs.

Noting that Adham has previously resorted to mugging to pay for his addiction, police said that this is what he planned to do on December 4 as well. However, he was unsuccessful as it was daytime and decided to obtain a knife from a café under a pretence. He planned to use this knife to “scare” his mugging victims.

When he continued to luck out, Adham had decided to travel to Velana International Airport to try his hand there, but failed as well. While Adham is to have traveled there via a taxi, police said that he had contemplated targeting this driver as well but decided against it after a conversation.

After failing at the airport, the attacker is to have targeted the taxi queue there, especially the older taxi drivers. He is to have gotten inside Gasim’s taxi from there, asking to take him to the Hulhumalé Halfway house.

Adham’s first attempt to mug Gasim near the house failed as another vehicle passed by as they reached the road, which led to him making up an excuse to head to another destination and return there in Gasim’s taxi. As such, he is to have told the driver that he did not have the card required to enter the building and asked Gasim to take him elsewhere to get it.

As soon as Gasim brought him to the road where the halfway house is located, Adham is to have grabbed him from behind and held the knife to his throat. Police said that Gasim began screaming at this point, and Adham ended up stabbing him “once” in the neck.

Police confirmed that Gasim was stabbed once, but that he had defence wounds on his hands where he grabbed the knife by the blade in order to escape.

Adham is to have gotten rid of his clothes and borrowed a shirt from a friend living in Hulhumalé before returning to Malé.

Police further noted that despite having confessed to the crime, that Adham had told them he had never intended to attack anyone but to threaten them.

Gasim was found lying face-down in a puddle of blood on the road.

Police continue to investigate the case.