A hearing in the Raa Fuggiri corruption trial was cancelled for the third time due to the illness of co-defendant Ahmed 'Krik' Riza, who served in various government posts during former president Abdulla Yameen's administration.
Yameen is on trial along with businessman Riza and the Sun Investment and Sun Construction and Engineering companies over the Fuggiri island's lease, which was part of the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) corruption scandal that occurred during his presidency.
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 has been hearing testimony from prosecution witnesses.
While two hearings had been cancelled before the Eid holidays, people who requested to observe the online hearing scheduled for today were taken into the courtroom. But one hour later, the section of the court that was assigned the case announced that the hearing has been cancelled.
"As defendant Krik Riza is sick, and it has been informed to the court with a medical document, we've had to cancel today's hearing as well," the section of judge Ali Nadheem called and said.
The court has heard testimony from six state witnesses so far, including former vice president Ahmed Adeeb and former MMPRC managing director Abdulla Ziyath, the chief architects of the MMPRC embezzlement scheme.
Fuggiri case
According to the prosecution, Yameen used his influence as president to collect USD 1,117,000 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 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.
On May 26, 2016, USD 1.1 million was transferred from an account opened under Riza's name at the Bank of Ceylon to Sun Construction. The money was deposited as an "in-house transfer" on June 7, 2016 to an account opened by Sun Investment at the Bank of India.
On the same day, the money was deposited with an additional USD 800 to an account opened under Yameen's name at the Islamic Bank.
Yameen, Krik Riza and the Sun companies say that the transactions were unrelated to the Fuggiri lease, claiming it was a currency exchange transaction with a Sun company to convert US dollars. Defence witnesses were submitted to prove the claim.
