Former Maldivian president and current parliamentary speaker Mohamed Nasheed yesterday underwent more surgery following an assassination attempt, but his condition was described as stable.
The Indian Ocean archipelago’s first democratically elected leader was seriously injured when a device attached to a motorcycle was detonated as he entered a car in the capital, Male, late on Thursday, an official said.
“Nasheed escaped an assassination attempt,” a Maldivian government official said. “He is injured, but his condition is stable.”
Photo: Reuters
The private ADK hospital said that the 53-year-old required further surgery following a thorough assessment of his condition.
The hospital did not give additional details, but a family member said that shrapnel was removed from a lung and his liver.
“We are hopeful of a full recovery,” he said, adding that Nasheed was responsive and spoke with doctors as he was admitted.
One of his bodyguards was also taken to a hospital.
Officials said that the motorcycle with the device attached was parked down the narrow lane leading to Nasheed’s home.
Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, a close ally of Nasheed, said that an investigation was under way as officials rushed to denounce the targeted attack on the country’s second most powerful figure.
“Cowardly attacks like these have no place in our society,” Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid wrote on Twitter.
The Indian Ocean nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims is best known for its luxury holiday resorts popular with honeymooners, but it suffers from regular political turmoil.
There was no claim of responsibility for the bomb attack, but officials close to Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said they suspected vested political interests opposed to his anti-corruption drive.
Nasheed has vowed to investigate a US$90 million theft from the state’s tourism promotion authority during the tenure of former Maldivian president Abdulla Yameen.
“There are some dormant Islamists who could have collaborated with political elements threatened by Nasheed’s anti-corruption drive,” an MDP source said.
The government has cracked down on extremism and foreign preachers are banned. Violent attacks have been rare, but a dozen foreign tourists were wounded by a bomb blast in Male in 2007. The Islamic State claimed a boat arson attack last year, but there is little evidence the group has a presence in the archipelago.
Yameen claimed that he survived an assassination attempt following a blast aboard his yacht in September 2015. He was unhurt.
Nasheed rose to become the Maldives’ first democratically elected leader in 2008 in the country’s first multiparty elections after 30 years of autocratic rule.
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