MOSCOW, Dec 25 A court in the Maldives recognized the former president of the country Abdullah Yamin is guilty of bribery and money laundering, he faces 11 years in prison, according to the Maldivian edition of Avas.
«In his verdict, the judge found President Yamin guilty of the charges,» the newspaper said.
The publication writes that the trial of the former president of the country began in January 2022. Yamin was accused of depositing money from the sale of Aara Island into a personal account and laundering the funds, as well as accepting a one million dollar bribe from former parliamentarian Yusuf Nayem, who was also on trial for bribery.
The prosecutor's office demands the maximum sentence for Yamin due to his position at the time of the crime: 11 years in prison and a sixfold increase in the fine. Under the law of the Maldives, the fine cannot be increased by more than five times, so the maximum possible fine under the law was requested. Yusuf Nayem was also found guilty of bribery.
Abdullah Yamin was sentenced to five years in prison in 2019 on charges of money laundering. In mid-December 2018, a criminal court in the Maldives froze 100 million Maldivian rufiyaas (about $6.5 million) in Yameen's bank accounts in connection with an investigation into the possibility of financial fraud. In November 2021, the Supreme Court of the Maldives overturned the five-year prison sentence previously imposed on the former president of the country.