Papa, Thiham, Zameer to be sentenced Sunday night

Criminal Court has scheduled sentencing of former head of President’s security Ahmed Fayaz Ali RIza (Papa) and two other military officers over events that took place after the explosion onboard presidential speedboat “Finifenma” for Sunday night.

Other two defendants in the case are – head of military EOD department, Ahmed Thiham (Bulbul, S. Feydhoo) and a military officer who reports to Thiham and Fayaz – Moosa Zameer (Male’ Dhaftar).

Fayaz has been pressed with two charges – obstructing a law enforcing officer from performing his duty, and obstruction of justice.

Thiham and Zameer have been pressed with the sole charge of obstruction of justice.

President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom and First Lady Fathimath Ibrahim were travelling from the airport to Male’ on September 28, 2015 after concluding their visit to Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj pilgrimage when an explosion took place onboard the speedboat they were travelling in.

Fayaz is accused of withholding police officers who arrived at the scene of the explosion from boarding the speedboat to investigate.

He is accused of enforcing his authority over other law enforcing officers, but failing to take sufficient measures to protect the scene of the crime.

Thiham and Zameer is accused of following Fayaz’s orders and taking evidence from the crime scene without proper measures to preserve the evidence.

State witnesses testified against the three defendants in court.