‘I don’t trust Male police investigation’

Father of slain Maldivian blogger Yameen Rasheed has appealed to the international community to intervene in the probe into his son’s recent death. “I don’t trust the [Male] police investigation,” he told reporters here on Friday.

Currently in Colombo to pressure diplomats to take up the case, 54-year-old Hussain Rasheed said India, as the most important country in the region, must take the lead. “No one feels safe in Male,” he said of the island’s capital city, where activists accuse the government of curbing dissent.

Dissident views

Earlier this month, Yameen Rasheed, 29, known for his dissident views, was stabbed to death by unidentified persons. “I was not allowed to see his body at first, but after some arguments with the staff at the hospital, I got to see him,” his father said, recalling having spotted at least 14 stab wounds on his son’s chest and forehead. “His throat was slit, and part of his skull was missing.” The blogger spent much of his childhood in Kerala, where his father continues to work. After completing his schooling in Thiruvananthapuram with his siblings, Yameen went to Bangalore to pursue a degree in computer science. “He could understand Hindi and Malayalam well, but hardly knew any Dhivehi (Maldivian) language,” said the father. He moved to Male in 2010.

“We heard that he had reported some death threats he received in the name of Islam to the police,” Mr. Rasheed said, adding that while his son was not irreligious, he was against radical Islam. “There was no action from the police,” he said, accusing them of erasing evidence at the scene of crime.

Following the blogger’s murder, the UN called for an immediate probe that meets international standards.