Months of political infighting in the Maldives have reached an explosive juncture after the arrest of the island nation’s vice president in connection with an alleged attempt to blow up the president in a speedboat bombing.
Police detained Ahmed Adeeb as he stepped on to the Tarmac at the Maldives’ international airport after an official trip to China. Officers charged him with “high treason” before taking him to an island prison, the Maldives government confirmed.
President Abdulla Yameen escaped injury last month in a blast on a boat carrying him from the airport to the island capital Male. He had been attending the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia with his wife, who sustained a fractured spine in the attack and remains in hospital.
An investigation confirmed the explosion had been deliberate, and rumours circulating Male, a cramped city of 150,000 people, had centred on Mr Adeeb before his arrest. He has denied any involvement in the bombing.
“Despite huge speculation, Adeeb's arrest is still a shock as he was only appointed in June, after a rapid rise in the past three years,“ said Daniel Bosley, a journalist based in Male and the former editor of the Maldives Independent.
The imperilled paradise of islands in the Indian Ocean, which supports dozens of luxury resorts, has faced growing challenges to democracy in recent years, as well as threats from climate change and religious extremism.
”This shows the outside world what those within the Maldives have known for a long time - that this is a deeply divided and unstable government,” Mr Bosley added.
Security on Male has been tightened as reports emerged of three other arrests, including that of a former security guard who worked for Mr Adeeb, and an officer in the Army’s bomb squad.
Mr Adeeb, a former tourism minister, had been seen as a loyal member of the Yameen government. His arrest comes months after the impeachment of his predecessor, Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, following suspicions of a similar attempt to oust the President.
Mr Ahmed also denies any suggestion he tried to orchestrate a coup, and tweeted in response to his successor’s arrest: “My innocence has been proven today.”
Mr Adeeb, who is 33, sought a change to the Maldives constitution before replacing Mr Ahmed, removing a minimum age limit for high office of 35 years. The former actor and student of Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent, is married to the heir of one of the Maldives’ biggest luxury resort companies.
He was defiant in the face of his rumoured involvement in the bombing, denying suggestions that he would go into exile. On Friday, as he prepared to leave Beijing, he tweeted: “Coming home to Maldives tomorrow after excellent developments in China. Amazing what we can do when we stand together.”
In January, another supposed ally of the President, the former defence minister Colonel Mohamed Nazim, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for weapons offences. The colonel had played a key role in the alleged coup in 2012 that led to the resignation of Mohamed Nasheed, who became the Maldives’ first democratically elected President in 2008.
Mr Nasheed has served more than six months of a 13-year sentence for terrorism charges. But President Yameen, who won disputed elections in 2013, faces growing international pressure after the UN ruled earlier this month that Mr Nasheed’s detention was politically motivated. [LINK: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/amal-clooney-wins-the-day-as-un-rules-former-maldives-president-was-unlawfully-jailed-a6680986.html ]
“These events show that the Maldives is, if anything, moving further away from stable and democratic governance and returning to the cycle of coups, plots, and general intrigue that have long been a staple of life in Male,” Mr Bosley said.
