Abdulla Maumoon, managing director of the Maldives Gas company during former President Abdulla Yameen's government, has been charged with seven counts of bribery.
The charges were filed at the Criminal Court on April 18, the Prosecutor General's (PG) office said on Thursday.
Abdulla Maumoon was residing overseas when the charges were raised. The PG office has decided to seek an arrest warrant from the court to bring him back to face trial. The authorities will attempt to bring him back to the Maldives through Interpol, the office said.
He was charged with seven counts of accepting bribes. Each charge carries a prison term of three years, two months and 12 days with a total of about 22 years and three months for the seven counts.
The charges were raised over seven transactions involving money transfers to Abdulla Maumoon, his companies and family members from 3DH International after it was contracted to supply liquid petroleum to Maldives Gas.
According to the first count, the transaction occurred on April 7, 2016 with USD 29,941.50 deposited to Abdulla Maumoon's Bank of Maldives (BML) account.
The second transaction occurred on June 7, 2016 with USD 49,921.50 deposited to Abdulla Maumoon's Bank of Ceylon account and USD 12,201.50 deposited to the BML account of Monarch Pvt Ltd, a company linked to him.
For the third count, the transaction occurred on August 1, 2016 with USD 49،949.50 deposited to the BML account of Monarch Pvt Ltd.
The fourth transaction is said to have occurred on April 9, 2017 with USD 24,930 deposited to the Islamic Bank account of I Developers Pvt Ltd, another company with ties to Abdulla Maumoon.
The fifth transaction flagged by the PG office occurred on May 15, 2017 with an attempt to deposit USD 46,555 to Abdulla Maumoon's Islamic Bank account.
The sixth transaction occurred on August 23, 2017 with USD 49,955 deposited to Abdulla Maumoon's Islamic Bank account.
The transaction for the seventh count occurred on October 8, 2017 with USD 34,950 deposited to the BML account of Abdulla Maumoon's half-brother Ahmed Hameed.
A total of USD 298,403.5 was deposited as bribes to accounts tied to Abdulla Maumoon, the PG office said.
