:: Dhivehi Observer :: Peoples Press ::

Police illegally enter ADK Nashid's Fisheries Complex

By "Donim" - Thursday, 23 September 2004

Maldives police on Tuesday night illegally entered ADK Nashid's fisheries complex in Maandhoo, Laamu Atoll.
ADK Nashid, the owner of the complex, was recently taken into police custody but has now been released without charges.
When staff at his fisheries complex refused police keys to drawers inside the office, the officers reportedly broke the locks.
The police did not present a search warrant, even though they are required to do so by law.
Their superiors in Male' denied giving orders to them to enter the premises and, after some hours, the officers reportedly left the complex without further damages.
But government critics involved in businesses are worried that police can carry out acts like these without any apparent authorization.
Home minister Umar Zahir will have to explain this outrageous behavior by his police, who are not governed by the emergency laws currently in place in Male and the surrounding islands.
Some sources are saying that police are in fact not in Umar Zahir's control, but Gayyoom's brother Yameen's.
Yameen, the trade minister, is one of the most despised men in the Maldives, and is allegedly the architect behind the stabbing of a policeman and the arson attack to create discord in August's pro-reform demonstrations.
Many people believe Yameen is funding drug addicts, thugs, and even sections of Gayyoom's armed forces to harass reformists, who he see as a threat to his own ambitions to succeed his brother as the Maldives leader.
Meanwhile unconfirmed reports say that police have foiled a plot by Yameen's buddies to import explosives into the Maldives. An expert in making explosive devices is allegedly already in Male', and is being harboured by the trio.