Former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb, who was serving a 20-year prison sentence over the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) corruption scandal, and the MMPRC’s former managing director Abdulla Ziyath, have been freed after their sentences were commuted.
The President exercised his powers under the parole law to grant clemency to Adeeb and Ziyath, a Maldives Correctional Service (MCS) media official confirmed to Adhadhu.
Ziyath was the company’s managing director when more than MVR 1.3 billion owed to the state was stolen through the MMPRC. The chief architect of the embezzlement scheme, former Vice President Adeeb, was the Tourism Minister at the time.
Ziyath was freed while he was serving a 20-year jail sentence over an MMPRC conviction. He was serving the sentence under house arrest.
Last September, the Prosecutor General’s (PG) office filed three new charges against Ziyath at court.
The cases involved the embezzlement of MVR 203 million, USD 6 million and USD 1 one million, the PG office said, seeking a sentence of 12 years.
Adeeb was also serving a 20-year jail sentence after he was convicted over the embezzlement of more than MVR 2 billion from the MMPRC during former President Abdulla Yameen’s administration. He was sentenced under a plea agreement with the state.
However, he was under house arrest for many years over a medical condition.
In 2019, Adeeb fled the country as a stowaway on a tugboat. He was caught in India’s Tuticorin.
After news of the pardons broke on Monday, Transparency Maldives strongly condemned Adeeb and Ziyath’s release as “a blatant betrayal of the principles that underpin a just and accountable society and undermines efforts to combat corruption and kleptocracy.”
The commutation of their sentences was an abuse of the President’s clemency powers and “represented the epitome of the protection, impunity and privilege enjoyed by political elite who abuse their positions of power and influence.” the anti-corruption NGO said.
“President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came into power in 2018, pledging zero tolerance for corruption. Over the past five years we have consistently seen corruption being green-lit, and those implicated in corrupt activities being protected,” Transparency Maldives said.
