Former President Abdullah Yameen says charges filed against him in the case of the sale of Vaa Arah to a company for resort development are unclear to him and his legal team.
Yameen was charged with money laundering and taking a bribe in relation to the case back in November of last year.
In today's hearing of the case, State Prosecutors read out the charges of taking a bribe against the former President and said that he had taken a bribe of USD 1 million for the transaction between Yoosuf Naeem and Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation to lease the island to the former.
The state's charge sheet accused Yameen of laundering the money acquired from the deal.
It also accused Yameen of transferring the USD 1 million he had deposited to an account in a Shanghai Account back to his account at the Bank of Maldives BML and then transferring those funds along with that in the account to his account at the Islamic Bank.
The State also said that Yameen had then transferred these funds to a general investment account at the Islamic Bank and had invested the funds for a period of 36 months.
Once the charges were read, Yameen had insisted that the charges were unclear to him. He added that he wanted to discuss the matter with all his lawyers.
Presiding Judge Ahmed Shakeel said that the court wanted to make sure that the charges were clear to the defendant and to ensure this he would be given the chance to state his defense against the charges in the next hearing.
