Maldives drug smuggler repatriated from Sri Lanka

The Maldivian man who was arrested in Sri Lanka last year on drug smuggling charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison has been brought to the Maldives to serve out his sentence in his native country.

The Maldivian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka Ali Hussain Didi said that Ibrahim Adam Manik, son of Malé Municipality’s President Sarangu Adam Manik, was returned to Malé during a prisoner exchange agreement which took place last Friday.When asked whether it was the Maldivian Government or the prisoner’s family that had tried to bring the prisoner to Malé to serve out his sentence, Hussain Didi said that it was usually the prisoner himself who requested for such things.

Ibrahim Adam Manik had been sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Sri Lankan court on 26 March.

“When the prisoner made the request, the Maldivian and Sri Lankan governments made the necessary arrangements to make the exchange,” Hussain Didi said.

The Press Secretary of the President’s Office Mohamed Zuhair said on Monday that the prisoner’s family had worked harder than the Government to bring about the transfer.

“Especially Adam Manik,” he said. “But he didn’t do it in an official capacity as a Government official.”

According to Haveeru sources, Ibrahim Adam Manik is now serving his sentence in the low security jail at Kaafu atoll Feydhoofinolhu.

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