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Saturday 26 Apr 2025
LOCAL EDITION
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LOCAL EDITION
Hundreds of Maldivian youths gathered in front of the criminal investigation building of Maldives Police Service demanding justice for the woman who fell from a Male' City building and was discovered unconscious on the rooftop of a neighboring house. (Sun Photo/Moosa Nadheem)
Maldives Police Service has denied allegations circulating on social media that a female individual, who was among the group of people with the young woman later discovered injured on the rooftop of a warehouse in Malé and who is currently subject to a travel ban, has left the country.
21-year-old Mariyam Yumnu was found injured on the rooftop of a warehouse in the Henveiru district at around 07:23 am on Friday, April 18. According to the police, their investigation uncovered that she fell from a skylight on the ninth-floor stairwell of the adjacent building, H. Fentenoy, but that there was no evidence of foul play.
But before Yumnu went to Fenetoy, the group of nine were at Ma. Maandhooge Dhekunuge for a party, possibly with drugs and alcohol.
They are:
While Raudh, who was with Yumnu at Fentenoy when she fell, was arrested under a court order at 18:20pm on Thursday evening, there is a travel ban order against all individuals who were at the party.
Rumors on social media claimed one the females against whom a travel ban order was in effect had left the country.
However, Police, on Friday, denied the allegations that one of the against whom a travel ban order was in effect had traveled overseas to Malaysia.
According to Police, the group of nine had been at Ma. Maandhooge Dhekunuge – the family residence of Transport Minister Mohamed Ameen – from at least three hours starting from 12:30am.
Ameen has admitted that two of his nephews were among the group of individuals involved, but denied he knew anything about the “gathering.”
The nephews in question are Izdhiyaan and Yoosuf Ahmed Akram.
Out of the two, Izdhiyaan had been serving as the Undersecretary for Strategic Communications at the President’s Office. But he was dismissed on Thursday.
CCTV footage shows four of them, including Yumnu and Raudh, leaving the house at around 03:40am and going to a house located in front of STELCO in Ameenee Magu at around 04:00am. They are seen exiting the second house around 10 minutes later. Yumnu and Raudh, the former of whom was barefoot, were then seen at around 04:15am entering H. Fentenoy, a nearby building located in Buruzu Magu, from where she fell.
Until Thursday, the Police had declined to identify anyone other than the victim.
They also made no arrests, and their search had been limited to Fentenoy, and not the other two houses.
But in a press conference led by Commissioner of Police Ibrahim Shujau on Thursday afternoon, the police said they had applied for a court warrant to arrest Raudh over lack of cooperation with the investigation, and search warrants for all properties linked to the case.
The police said they had also applied for warrants to force everyone to provide urine samples for drug tests, and now have no-fly orders against all eight, instead of just Raudh.
According to police, Raudh and Yumnu had tried to enter the terrace of the Fentenoy, which was locked. They were then seen on CCTV getting intimate in the stairwell. Raudh is also seen taking off his t-shirt at some point and giving it to Yumnu to wear.
Police said that camera footage later appears to show them looking for each other.
However, the police said that there weren’t any cameras on the ninth floor – from where the Yumnu fell. One of the clips screened by police shows Raudh on the stairs on the eighth floor at around 04:52am – which is the moment the police believe she fell.
He was seen searching for Yumnu throughout the building, including the outside through a skylight. He entered and exited the building multiple times, looking both inside the building and outside in the street, before he left around 20 minutes later.
Responding to speculation that Yumnu wouldn’t have landed where she did if she had fallen from the skylight, Shujau said that investigators had established that the spot where she was found is consistent with where a person would fall if they fell from the ninth-floor skylight.
Raudh is the younger brother of Daudh Ahmed, the undersecretary for digital strategy at the President’s Office. He was suspended without pay after photos and videos emerged purportedly showing him using narcotics.
Yumnu sustained serious injuries in the fall. She was initially treated on a ventilator but was later reported to be breathing on her own. However, her condition remains serious and she is being treated in the ICU of Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH).
Mounting public anger over the case prompted a large crowd of protesters, the vast majority of them young men and women, to gather outside the Sergeant Adam Haleem Criminal Investigation Building in Male’ on Wednesday and Thursday nights, demanding justice for the young woman.
