Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Ali Waheed has also reported the leakage of several document concerning the Guantanamo Bay detainees to police. The Foreign Ministry said it was reporting the matter to the police on Tuesday.
Press secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair said that Waheed was trying to escape after he was accused of being the recipient of a stolen secret document of the government.
Zuhair claimed Waheed had reported the case because ”he realised what he had done.”
”All the collaborators involved in the crime of stealing a government document and spreading it without clarifying its validity are also equally culpable,” said Zuhair. ‘They should be given the punishment that one receives for being a thief.”
Zuhair said the theft of the documents was a crime under articles 12 and 13 of the penal code.
”Politics is not an excuse for crime,” he said. ”Whoever stole the documents is a criminal shall be treated as a criminal.”
He said that government was not trying to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees into the country in secret.
”We will only bring him according to the law,” he said. ”What is the problem with it if he has a valid passport, the threat of being attacked if he goes back to his own country and he is a innocent Muslim?”
He said that Ali Waheed was aware the matter was not unlawful or dangerous, and dismissed counter-claims by the opposition as ”pure political circus”.
”That man [Waheed] has the look of a comedian,” Zuhair said.
Waheed, in a press conference yesterday, announced that he had reported the leaked document to police and said he had requested they investigate the case, so the government’s documents could be safely protected while the National Security Committee was investigating the Guantanamo Bay affair.
”I did not steal anything,” he claimed. “When I received government documents that I believed had the potential to harm the national security of the country I presented it to the national security committee to investigate,” he said.
”I do not believe that it is known as thieving. It was not leaked by my mistake.”
Foreign minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed has also reported the case to the police.
Dr Shaheed said the documents consisted of unofficial communications to the Maldives government from the US government, and a document sent to the Attorney General’s office by the Foreign Ministry.
Dr Shaheed said the documents also included an unofficial letter sent from the US discussing how a legal framework could be established to bring in the detainees.
Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair has recently said that the document was not leaked but was “deliberately stolen”, which he said caused “a lot of trouble” for the Maldives, by disrupting diplomatic relationships between countries.
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