Ex-VP Adeeb departs to Singapore for medical treatment

Former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb Abdul Gafoor has departed to Singapore to seek medical treatment for a neurology-related serious and life-threatening condition.

Maldives Correctional Service’s Media Board granted permission to Adeeb to travel overseas for medical purposes earlier in the day as he needed to undergo tests unavailable locally.

Adeeb’s party, Maldives Third-Way Democrats (MTD), confirming Adeeb’s departure, said he left for Singapore based on the recommendations of multiple doctors.

In an earlier statement, MTD said Adeeb was diagnosed with the condition after three years of solitary confinement, between 2015 to 2018.

He will be in the custody of police and corrections during his Singapore visit. 

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 dead, Adeeb served as a state witness in Yameen’s trial.

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