Tag: embezzlement

DRP condemns NYT ‘looters’ article as “cheap propaganda gimmick”

The Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) has issued a statement condemning an article published in the New York Times, in which journalist by Matthew Saltmarsh described former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom as a “looter” and alleged he had misappropriated state funds.

The article further claimed that the present government was working with the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR), a joint initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations, to recover US$400 million allegedly stolen by the former administration.

The DRP stated that the repeated accusations of embezzlement leveled at Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom “are the MDP government’s last ditch efforts to resuscitate its waning public support and confidence in the face of its failure to manage the Maldivian economy.”

“The MDP government, in an year and a half of searching through its ‘presidential commission’, has failed to find anything that they can pin against President Gayoom to defame his character. The MDP government will continue to fail in their sinister plots,” the DRP statement read.

“This latest accusation is no different from that by MDP official Hassan Afeef in the run up to the 2008 Presidential Election. A defamation suit was filed against him. It is notable that Afeef has to date ignored the verdict of the court of the set compensation,” the statement noted, adding that “local MDP-controlled newsletter ‘Miadhu’ has also published an article repeating the many lies in Matthew Saltmarsh’s article.”

The party observed that the allegations in the NYT article were largely based on a 2009 report by Auditor General Ibrahim Naeem, who “was sacked recently following serious acts of corruption and misappropriation of state funds.”

“It is common knowledge that Naeem’s audit reports were both politically-motivated and riddled with inaccuracies. References from such documents are unbecoming of professional journalists, albeit the MDP government utilises them as handbooks to achieve their political objectives. Furthermore, the fact that Finance Minister Ali Hashim had himself provided the quotes for the article is notable,” the DRP statement said.

“The DRP will take all necessary action to alert the international community to the government’s sinister motives behind the allegations against the Former President. We condemn the government for its continued attempts to shroud its incompetence in running the country behind cheap propaganda gimmicks.”

Speaking to newspaper Haveeru, Gayoom dismissed claims in the audit report as “politically-motivated” and “lies from A to Z”, and vowed to “protect myself from defamation” by taking both Saltmarsh and Hashim to court.

“He [the former Auditor General] issued the reports during the 2008 presidential election with certain political motives,” Gayoom told Haveeru.

“The reports were directly targeted at me with an agenda to attack my dignity, just a day before voting began. Moreover, the reports are definitely questionable, since he was sacked by parliament through a no confidence motion,” Gayoom said, insisting he had “never abused state funds.”

Government could be seeking US assistance

Meanwhile, newspaper Miadhu carried unverified claims this morning that Hashim, along with Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed, Home Minister Mohamed Shihab and Attorney General Husnu Suood, had rendezvoused in Europe to meet with FBI officials “at an unidentified location in the European continent.”

Hashim told Minivan News he had nothing to clarify as he had “never met FBI officials anywhere in the world.”

The Foreign Minister appeared to be in no hurry to dispel the rumours, however.

“Should that meeting have taken place, obviously we wouldn’t be talking about it,” Dr Shaheed said. “What I can say is that the government is serious about reclaiming stolen assets, and we’re very confident it will happen really quickly.”

He said he doubted Gayoom or the DRP had a viable case against the NYT.

“The DRP should consider the distinct international legalities governing past and present politicians, particularly heads of state. Mr Gayoom should recognise that people in such positions will face criticism.”

“I don’t think they are serious,” he said. “In defamation lawsuits the onus is on public figures to prove malicious intent or reckless disregard for the truth. One must have a lot of money to hire a hotshot lawyer capable of proving that against a particular article by the NYT.”

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Embezzlement accusations resurface amid World Bank investigation

Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, special envoy to the president, has renewed allegations that former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has US$80 million hidden in foreign bank accounts, including US$40 million in tsunami aid from the Emir of Qatar.

The last time the allegation was made, by Hassan Afeef, a former MP and now political advisor to the president, Gayoom successfully sued for defamation and Afeef was fined US$350.

Zaki insisted he “was only quoting what was said in newspapers in the UK in an interview with the Global Protection Committee (GPC),” describing it only as “an international NGO.”

The GPC’s leader, Michael Lord-Castle, told Minivan News during an interview in November 2006 “that we have been advised that between US$60-80 million has been transferred from Maldives’ governmental funds directly to various private bank accounts in favour of President Gayoom. Some of those funds we understand derive from donations made in respect to the tsunami disaster.”

When Minivan News asked ‘Commander’ Lord-Castle to disclose the countries and banks the money had been transferred to, he replied that “investigations are continuing and at this stage it is necessary to withhold certain information.”

Members of the controversial GPC, of which little record exists for an organisation “first formed in 1943 towards the end of the Second World War” and boasting “over 2,400 members ranging from ex-presidents, prime ministers and ministers of different countries”, travelled to the Maldives to observe the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s planned assembly for constitutional change on 10 November 2006.

Lord-Castle said the group had been commissioned to produce a report to the European Parliament on the political situation in Maldives, a claim denied by the European Parliament. He was deported from the Maldives together with four associates.

The GPC’s website has since disappeared from the web, while Lord-Castle’s current wikipedia entry describes him as a ‘well-known English businessman’ with varied involvement in an insolvency advisory service, a failed business-class airline, a vigilante ambulance service, and the supplier of a cleaning chemical called Vizexon promising to “kill all pathogens, including swine flu, H5N1, bird flu, SARS, influenza virus and HIV.”

Zaki said that he did not believe the accusation was defamatory “and if Gayoom feels he is getting defamed then he should file a suit against the GPC.”

“If [the accusation] proves true it will be fairly significant because first of all it was money from the National Treasury, secondly the money was for tsunami victims, and thirdly there would be reason to anticipate more [hidden money],” he said.

World Bank enlisted

Zaki pictured with members of the GPC in November 2006
Zaki pictured with members of the GPC in November 2006

Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed announced in September he was seeking the help of the World Bank’s Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR) to recover a suspected US$2 billion in embezzled funds, stating that the money was needed to plug a budget deficit of 34 per cent of GDP.

“Many people have been in one way or another connected to this huge web of corruption,” Nasheed said, adding that international help was needed because of a lack of forensic accountancy skills in the country.

Gayoom’s assistant and former chief government spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef (Mundhu) responded to the allegations by demanding Zaki “show us the evidence. If you have the details make them public, instead of repeating allegations. Maumoon has said, ‘go ahead and take a look, and if you find anything make it public.'”

“There is no evidence to link Gayoom to corruption,” he insisted. “What Afeef said was very slanderous. We threw the book at him, and showed in court that he had no evidence to back up his claim at all, not a single piece of evidence.”

He described the renewal of the allegations as “immature, especially dragging the Qatari government into this. We called them and they were as surprised as us – senior officals in their government had no clue about [the alleged theft of US$40 million in tsunami aid]. Anyone of intelligence knows that aid money is not passed across a table by leaders. Gayoom could obviously not just take off with donor or tsunami aid.”

Mundhu expressed confidence that the World Bank’s investigation “would find nothing untoward. I know for a fact that our tsunami aid accounting mechanism was far superior to that of many other countries. All the aid money went through one oversight body headed by the then UN representative and the auditor general.”

The source of the allegations, the GPC, were one of many “voodoo NGOs” around at the time, he said. “We tried to find out what they were about, and basically drew a blank. Nobody in the UK knew anything about them.”

The allegations were intended “to wipe Gayoom off the political map,” Mundhu claimed. “The MDP is a minority government. Nasheed himself as an individual has no more than 25 per cent support in the country. Gayoom is the most popular individual with 45 per cent and over 100,000 die-hard supporters – clearly people thought he did a good job. Nasheed could not beat him one-to-one, and that reality is very hard [for the MDP] to stomach.”

The accusations of embezzlement, he suggested, were the activities of “certain unpleasant elements in the MDP. I don’t branch Nasheed in this, but [the party] was so intent on bringing in people with grievances towards the [former] government that they brought in unsavoury elements that now even Nasheed cannot control.”

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