Malé, Maldives – The High Court of Maldives has accepted an appeal submitted to the court regarding the Criminal Court’s refusal to accept Youth Minister Ahmed Mahloof’s case.
The Criminal Court turned down the case stating that the case cannot be taken forward in a civil standard, as the evidence submitted by the state is not sufficient enough to prove Mahloof being guilty.
Following this, PG appealed the case in High Court and it has now been accepted.
The case which Mahloof is being prosecuted for is being involved in the biggest grand corruption case the Maldives has seen, in which investigations carried out by Maldives Police Service, Presidential Comission on Corruption and Asset Recovery amd Anti Corruption Commission over the MMPRC corruption, Mahloof had taken a bribe of USD 33,000 on 1st September 2014 to vote for the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Bill and also to remain in Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM).
The investigation also revealed that Mahloof was in Malaysia during the debate of the bill and came to Maldives to attend the vote on August 27, 2014 and voted in favor of the government to pass the bill.
In addition to this, the joint investigation also showed that the investigation was able to link the text messages exchanged between Mahloof and Former Vice President of Maldives, Ahmed Adeeb (Bro) and the money deposited by SOF cheque of USD 33,000 to Mahloof to the vote taken in parliament as a bribe.
These are claims that Mahloof vehemently denies and accused that some names from the list had been removed due to political influence before being published and that he was being treated unfairly in the investigation. Mahloof also added that if the investigation was being carried out without any bias against him that he would not remain in his position as a Minister for even a single day.
