Police stop and search ruling party MP

MP Ibrahim Sujau of the ruling Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) was stopped and his luggage searched by police officers in Hulhumalé on Saturday night.

Sujau was returning from a trip to southern Addu City. On his way from the airport to Hulhumalé, police officers stopped his car and asked to search his bags.

“A vehicle signaled for us to stop and it was the police. They wanted to search my bag so I immediately put my bag on the road. They put gloves on and searched the whole bag in the street,” said the MP for Baarashu constituency.

He said he had called Commissioner of Police Hussein Waheed demanding an explanation. Waheed said he did not know why police had searched Sujau’s bags, the MP said.

PPM parliamentary group leader Ahmed Nihan has also been alerted, Sujau said.

The young MP, who is also the manager at PPM MP Ahmed ‘Redwave’ Saleem’s supermarket chain, sparked controversy in August after he was pictured receiving a pardoned convict at the Maafushi Jail.

Sujau had gone to receive a man who had been sentenced to ten years in jail on drug trafficking charges. The MP was accompanied by Ibrahim Shafaz, an alleged drug kingpin.