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Ahmed Rilwan --

MALE : Attorney General Ahmed Usham clarified the current challenges in sharing reports from the Presidential Commission on Deaths and Disappearances with the family of missing journalist Ahmed Rilwan.

Rilwan, a journalist at Minivan News, was abducted on August 7, 2014. In September 2019, the commission stated during a press conference that a local group affiliated with ISIS and Al-Qaeda murdered Rilwan and dumped his body at sea. The commission later authored several detailed reports, which the family requested the government share with them.

Rilwan’s family questioned the Attorney General during the public ‘Ahaa Forum’ regarding delays in sharing the documents currently being reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office.

Usham explained that the review process is near completion, but sharing or publishing the reports is difficult because they contain confidential police intelligence information.

“We are currently examining which of these reports can be made public. The issue here is the way these reports have been compiled; they contain certain confidential police intelligence information,” Usham stated during the forum.

Addressing the timeline for completing the review and advising the state, Usham noted the ongoing work by his office.

“We expect the work of reviewing these reports to be completed within the next month or so. Once that process is finished, I will present my legal advice to President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu,” Usham said.

Usham also expressed his intention to engage directly with Rilwan’s relatives in the coming days.

“I will also work towards meeting with Rilwan’s family within the upcoming week,” Usham added.

Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, an investigative journalist for Minivan News, disappeared on August 7, 2014, after being abducted outside his apartment in Hulhumalé. For years, his family and local rights groups campaigned for an uncompromised investigation, citing initial police inaction and political obstruction.

The Presidential Commission on Deaths and Disappearances was formed in late 2018 to investigate unresolved murders and enforced disappearances. Although the commission publicly named extremist groups involved in Rilwan’s murder in 2019, key suspects were later acquitted or released, leaving the family still seeking full accountability and justice a decade later.