Male, October 27

Lawmakers in the Maldives moved today to impeach Vice president Ahmed Adeeb over an alleged plot to assassinate his boss in a speedboat bombing last month, officials said.

Parliamentarians submitted a no-trust resolution against Adeeb to the assembly today, they confirmed to AFP, three days after he was arrested as he returned to the island following an official visit to China.

A total of 52 lawmakers from President Abdulla Yameen’s ruling party and his allies supported the no-confidence vote against Adeeb, but they need five more votes from the opposition to sack the vice-president.

It was not immediately clear when the no-confidence motion — the method used in the Maldives to remove a president, vice president or ministers accused of wrongdoing from office — would be taken up for debate and a vote.

Yameen used a national television address on Sunday to say Adeeb’s arrest had been carried out “for the safety and security of the nation”.

Authorities had recovered bomb-making materials from the homes of his associates in the capital island Male, he said. Adeeb, through his lawyer, denied involvement in the September 28 explosion to reporters in Male yesterday.

Yameen escaped unhurt from the blast, but his wife and two others were slightly wounded.

Adeeb, 33, was given the job after Yameen impeached his 2013 running mate Mohamed Jameel in July, after accusing him of treason. Jameel was not on the island at the time and remains abroad.

The arrest of the vice president followed a series of sackings of government officials, which have fuelled political unrest and further damaged the Maldives’ image as an upmarket tourist destination.

Adeeb was ordered to be detained for 15 days pending further investigations. Adeeb, who had a meteoric rise in politics, was also a hate figure for the main opposition, which accused him of dispatching underworld gangs to launch attacks against dissidents.

Yameen, who came to power in November 2013 following a controversial election, jailed his rival and former president Mohamed Nasheed for 13 years in March on terror-related charges.

Yameen has rejected UN calls to release Nasheed, the country’s first democratically elected leader.

Nasheed ruled from 2008 to 2012 until being forced out in what he called a coup by police and troops loyal to the former regime. Supporters of Nasheed, the main opposition leader, have maintained that the conviction was part of a strategy by Yameen’s regime to silence him.