Ex-judge accused in Rilwan’s disappearance being investigated by inquiry commission, now

Presidential inquiry Commission on Deaths and Enforced Disappearances is now investigating Hassan Ali, the former High Court Judge accused of being involved in an attempt of falsifying documents in the case of abducted and murdered journalist Ahmed Rilwan.

Confirming this to RaajjeMV, police said that all its reports in the investigation have since been handed over to the commission.

Prior to the handover, police had been investigating the judge who is accused of working with two officers from the police intelligence unit, to create fake travel documents in Rilwan’s name.

They are accused to working to produce a fake passport and fabricate evidence that made it seem like the missing journalist is to have died after leaving the country to participate in a conflict overseas, in 2014.

The High Court Judge was the Immigration Controller, at the time of Rilwan’s disappearance.

While the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) had forwarded the case to police, Hassan Ali was suspended in September 2019.

He resigned this July, following a summon to a JSC hearing.

Parliament was also preparing to take an impeachment vote against Hassan, when he resigned.

While Rilwan was last seen in August 2014, police confirmed his abduction two years later in 2016. Incumbent President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih formed the Commission on Murders and Enforced Disappearances in November 2018, to investigate such cases. Back in September 2019, it was finally revealed that Rilwan was killed by an extremist group.

The commission, in December 2018, said that investigations showed links between Rilwan’s murder and two other high profile murders in the country; the 2012 murder of parliamentarian Dr. Afrasheem Ali, and the 2017 stabbing of Rilwan’s best friend and democracy activist Yameen Rasheed.