Thoyyib’s phone held over fake police report

The police have seized the mobile phone of Thoyyib Shaheem, a well-known social media activist, as they investigate a fake police report that was spread on social media last month.

A police spokesperson said on Thursday that a phone and other electronic devices owned by Thoyyib were seized under a court order for an investigation into a fake document.

The spokesperson did not say more.

The document in question was purportedly of an investigative report by the police regarding a forged warrant produced in 2016 in an attempt to arrest then-president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom.

The police dismissed the document as fake, and announced on September 3 that it was investigating the case as a serious issue.

The police said that an examination of the document revealed that the letterhead used in it is different from the police’s official letterhead, and that the forger used the signature of Assistant Commissioner of Police Ahmed Shifan – who regularly signs police press statements as the service’s chief spokesperson – for then-Acting Police Commissioner Abdulla Nawaz’s signature.

An anti-government activist, Thoyyib was arrested in March 2017 during Yameen’s administration, but was released by the High Court the next month, following which he relocated to Sri Lanka.

He returned to the Maldives in 2019 after then-President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih assumed office, and served as a senior executive director at the Tourism Ministry.