Malé, Maldives – Maldives Correctional Service said that Former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb was transferred to home arrest from jail under doctor’s advice for an indefinite period.
Maldives Correctional Service revealed the information in the case appealed to the Information Commissioner’s Office prevention of information regarding Adeeb’s transfer to home arrest. The case was appealed against Correctional Service by a journalist.
During the trials of the case, Corrections said that Adheeb was transferred to home arrest under doctor’s recommendation and that there was no certain duration for his transfer. They also added that the Former Vice President had breathing difficulties causing lack of sleep and that he needed the help of a specialised machine while noting thay this is a machine which could be be used in jail as well.
However, Home Minister Sheikh Imran Abdullah previously said that this machine cannot be used in jail while speaking on a programme of ” Dhivehi Raajjeyge Adu”.
The Home Minister of Maldives, Imran Abdulla mentioned earlier on October, 2020 that Adeeb’s health condition deteriorated and he was transferred to home arrest as the machine Adeeb needs to help him sleep cannot be used in jail.
Since then several questions have been sent to the Home Ministry asking information about the house arrest of Adeeb, however, the Ministry did not respond to any of the questions earlier.
To this, Home Ministry sent a short response which did not reveal the answers to any of the aforementioned questions. The Ministry only stated that “the Inspectorate of Correctional Service Support Section informed that as personal information are involved in the matter, it cannot be revealed to the general public.”
However, while the law states that the information of a person cannot be revealed to the public if the person is unwilling to, the law also states that even if the individual is unwilling to reveal personal information, if it is necessary to maintain the peace of the society, than the information can be revealed with the consent of the review committee of Maldives even if the individual is unwilling to share the information.
As the people are concerned about why a person who was found guilty for one of the biggest corruption case in Maldives accounting for up to MVR 3.3 Billion has been transferred to house arrest rather than serving his sentence properly in jail. Therefore, instead of denying to reveal any information regarding the house arrest of Adeeb, the Ministry must reveal at least few amount of information regarding Adeeb to provide peace to the concerned citizens.
While Adeeb was transferred from his apartment in Male’ to an apartment in Amin Avenue in Hulhumale’ recently, he has special Correctional Service officers kept as security guards in his apartment.
Ahmed Adeeb (Bro) made a plea agreement with the government on the seven charges filed against him for a jail sentence of 20 years over the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) scandal which cost the government more then MVR 4 Billion.
Former Vice President Adeeb who was well known as “Bro” was the most influential minister during the previous administration who rose within the political ranks to be Vice President of the Maldives after an orchestrated no confidence vote of the then Vice President Mohamed Jameel Ahmed who is now again back in the opposition PPM as an advisor. Adeeb was accused of using state funds which he and his close allies embezzled which he used to bribe politicians, judges and others in high positions in different institutions when he was in the government and he was also well known for funding local gangs.
He was first arrested during the previous administration under the charges of money laundering and trying to kill then-President Abdulla Yameen in 2015 and spent three years in jail before he was transferred to house arrest while at which he tried to flee to India on a tugboat as a stowaway in April 2019 and got arrested by the Indian authorities.
