Adeeb asks for extension to medical furlough

Former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb Abdul Gafoor has asked the Maldives Correctional Service for an extension to his medical furlough.

Adeeb travelled to Singapore for medical treatment on July 11, hours after the Correctional Service’s Medical Board granted him permission to travel overseas for medical tests that aren’t available from Maldives.

The service’s spokesperson Aminath Yusreen confirmed on Saturday that they have received an official request from Adeeb for an extension to his medical furlough.

She said the decision on an extension will be taken by the medical board, but declined to provide a timeframe for when a decision will be made.

Adeeb had been hospitalized on July 5, for what his party, the Maldives Third-Way Democrats (MTD) called “a serious and life-threatening neurological condition”.

MTD said Adeeb was diagnosed with the condition after three years of solitary confinement, between 2015 and 2018.

Adeeb, once the right-hand man of former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in October 2020, in connection to the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) embezzlement and money laundering scandal.

He had pled guilty to seven charges under a plea deal with the state, which reduced the charges against him from 30.

Prosecutor General Hussain Shameem had commented back then that investigators had collected enough evidence against Adeeb to press more than 150 charges, which would put him behind bars for 806 years.

After the plea deal, Adeeb served as a state witness in Yameen’s trial.

Despite the prison sentence against him, Adeeb had been under home confinement since 2020, based on medical grounds.