Former managing director of the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC), Abdulla Ziyath, said on Monday that he did not verify alleged orders from then-president Abdulla Yameen that came through his vice president Ahmed Adeeb.
Yameen is on trial along with businessman Ahmed 'Krik' Riza and the Sun Investment and Sun Construction and Engineering companies over the leasing of Raa Fuggiri island in the MMPRC corruption scandal during his administration.
Yameen was charged with money laundering and accepting a bribe. Riza was charged with money laundering and acting as an intermediary to bribery. Both Sun companies were charged with money laundering.
The criminal court heard witness testimony from Ziyath at Monday's hearing. In response to questions from prosecutors, Ziyath said he had met Krik Riza and arranged the lease of Fuggiri to a company linked to him on the instructions of Adeeb.
"It wasn't the MMPRC that was talking to an investor. The ministry proposed to a party. Minister [Adeeb] said president [Yameen] was involved in this," Ziyath said.
Fuggiri was leased without a bidding process to the Dubai-based Classic Citi Island Holding. Fuggiri was leased to the company for USD 1.55 million.
Ziyath said it was Krik Riza who took part in the transactions to lease the island to the company. While the MMPRC at first proposed USD 2.5 million, Riza asked for USD 400,000. The island was later leased for USD 1.55 million as instructed by Adeeb, he said.
In addition, the signing of the lease agreement was delayed upon Riza's request, Ziyath said. Citing Adeeb, Ziyath said this was due to a delay in a payment to Riza, which included a commission for Yameen.
Yameen also messaged a request to fast-track the island's leasing, he said.
Yameen asked for the opportunity to directly cross-examine the witness. His questions mainly concerned the relationship between Ziyath and Adeeb and the extent to which Ziyath verifies what Adeeb says.
In response, Ziyath said he has been friends with Adeeb for about 20 years now and that he has never made any effort to verify anything that Adeeb said, including alleged instructions from Yameen.
When Ziyath said that Yameen did not usually send messages, Yameen questioned whether he was certain that the message from Yameen's number had come from him. He asked whether it was possible that it could have been a compromised message.
Ziyath said it was possible for someone who knew Yameen's number and how it was saved in Ziyath's phone to have done it.
Questions were also posed about Ziyath's plea agreement with the state and about Ziyath serving his 20-year jail sentence under house arrest. Ziyath said he was under house arrest for medical reasons. Questions about the medical reasons were not allowed on the grounds of privacy.
Fuggiri case
According to the prosecution, Yameen used his influence as president to collect USD 1.1 million as a bribe through Riza and laundered the money through Sun Investment and Sun Construction and Engineering.
Fuggiri was leased through the MMPRC without a bidding process to the Dubai-based Classic Citi Island Holding. Fuggiri was leased to the company for USD 1.55 million. While bribery was suspected in the leasing of Fuggiri, the Pandora Papers revealed that influential Indian businessmen were behind the deal.
Records from the leaked Pandora Papers showed that Classic Citi was a partnership involving the family business of Indian property developer Avinash Bhosale and influential logistics businessman Amit Kumar Gandhi.
Yameen, who was awarded the presidential ticket of the Progressive Party of Maldives, is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence. He was convicted at the criminal court of accepting a USD 1.1 million as a bribe to lease Vaavu Aarah island through the MMPRC and then laundering the money. The High Court is hearing an appeal of the verdict.
