Police rule out foul play in young woman's ninth floor fall

Since the woman was found facedown on a rooftop with severe injuries on Friday morning, social media has been rife with allegations of gang rape, attempted murder and the wielding of political influence to shield a group of young men with connections to the government. 

But police concluded she had not been pushed, citing CCTV footage and other evidence, which pointed towards a fall from a ventilation shaft in a highly intoxicated state. 

The incident occurred after she spent Thursday night partying with a 21-year-old man and six other people at two locations in Malé, police told the press at the closed-door briefing. 

Journalists were shown security camera footage of the couple walking barefoot and entering Henveiru Fentenoy in Buruzu Magu. Their swaying and unsteady gait suggested intoxication.

Footage from inside the Fentenoy house showed the man and woman engaging in consensual sexual relations on the staircase and trying to open apartment doors close to 5am. They spent 30 minutes inside Fentenoy but did not know anyone from the residence, according to the police. The explicit part of the footage was not shown to journalists. 

Before the fall, the woman was seen wearing the man’s t-shirt and walking up alone to the ninth floor. Shortly thereafter, the shirtless man was seen climbing up from the eighth floor. A loud noise heard at the time was the sound of the woman falling, police concluded. But there was no footage of her falling as there were no cameras on the ninth floor. 

She fell on the roof of the two-storey warehouse next door. Street cameras showed the man exiting Fentenoy, frantically searching and asking for help from passersby. Nevertheless, he went home without calling the police. Despite the loud bang upon impact, no one saw the woman until the police were alerted at 7:23am. She was taken to the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital with the help of firefighters. 

The woman was treated for critical injuries at IGMH's intensive care unit. She has since been taken off ventilator support after her condition improved, police said. 

Addressing speculation of a cover-up by senior government officials, Chief Inspector of Police Mohamed Samih said there was no evidence of rape. The suspects questioned in the case did not have any political associations, he insisted. 

The police identified the young woman but did not reveal the identity of the man she had been with before the fall. 

The man was questioned on the following day and tested positive for cannabis. A sample taken from the woman also tested positive for drugs but police have yet to determine the narcotic substance. Both are suspected of having taken other type of drugs. 

The man has been barred from leaving the country. 

Dhauru has identified him as Raudh Ahmed Zilal, the brother of Daud Ahmed, undersecretary for digital strategy at the President's Office. 

Four young men and two young women in the group who partied earlier that night have been identified and most have been questioned, Chief Inspector Samih said.

The group appeared to have partied together for three hours in a house in the centre of Malé before the woman left with three men around 4am. They then spent 10 minutes inside another house in Ameenee Magu, after which two of the men left on a motorcycle and the couple walked off barefoot on Buruzu Magu.

CCTV footage showed the woman lying on the ground in a narrow alley off Buruzu Magu before getting up and entering the unlocked Fentenoy house. 

The police have questioned the two men who left on the motorbike. But they refused to provide samples for drug testing, which cannot be done without consent unless suspects were in an intoxicated state, Samih said.

The police have only searched Fentenoy and the man's residence for the investigation. Police determined there was no need to search the two houses where the group partied, Samih said, declining to disclose the addresses. 

According to Adhadhu, the house in Galolhu where the party took place belongs to a cabinet minister.