Supporters of the Maldives' new president and the three-decade ruler he defeated at the polls last year traded blame on Tuesday over a corruption probe in which the former president is being questioned.
Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was Asia's longest-serving leader when lost to his old rival, Mohamed Nasheed, last year at the first multiparty presidential election on the Indian Ocean archipelago, best known as luxury tropical hideaway.
Gayoom's government had repeatedly ordered Nasheed arrested when he was a political activist pushing for democratic reforms.
Although Gayoom stepped down peacefully and he and Nasheed appeared to have reached detente, the corruption probe has raised tensions between the men and their supporters.
Minivan News, an independent news website, reported that nearly 1,000 supporters gathered outside Gayoom's residence demanding Nasheed's resignation on Monday.
"Police forcibly tried to arrest Mr. Gayoom and are using the anti-corruption mechanism to remove Gayoom from politics," Mohamed Shareef, a spokesman for the former president, told Reuters from the Maldivian capital, Male.
The government said the charges were not politically motivated, and denied he was arrested.
"He was never arrested. He came to the police station in a right royal fashion in a motorcade," presidential press spokesman Mohamed Zuhair told Reuters by phone from Male.
Gayoom ruled the archipelago of 1,196 islands located 800 km (500 miles) off the tip of India from 1978, and is credited with turning it into a luxury tourist destination with south Asia's highest per-capita GDP.
Gayoom in the past had been accused of ruling the island like his own sultanate, a form of government abolished there in 1968.
Many Maldivians complain that only a small political elite around Gayoom grew rich from tourism, the linchpin of the $850 million economy and accounts for 28 percent of GDP. (Editing by Bryson Hull and Jeremy Laurence)
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