Two held over attack on ex-president

Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed is conscious after life-saving surgery, his family said yesterday, as police made two arrests over an explosion they said was being treated as a terror attack.

The 53-year-old was critically injured after a bomb went off as he left his family home in the capital Male on Thursday.

Police yesterday said they had made two arrests in connection with the attack, without giving further details.

“I’m good,” Nasheed said after coming off life support, according to his sister Nashida Sattar.

His brother, Ibrahim Nashid, said doctors were happy with Nasheed’s recovery.

“He is out of life support and breathing on his own,” he said in a tweet.

“Managed to exchange a few words. Promised to come back stronger. I believe him.”

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih thanked Nasheed’s medical team and said he prayed for his “quick recovery and return – stronger and steadier than ever”.

Nasheed is a democracy pioneer in the Maldives who ended decades of one-party rule in the archipelago and became its first democratically elected president in 2008.

He was barred from contesting a 2018 presidential election because of a terrorism conviction after he was toppled in a militarybacked coup in February 2012.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has declared that the conviction was politically motivated.

He returned from exile in Britain, however, and his party won legislative elections in 2019 and he is now parliamentary speaker, the country’s second most powerful post.

On Thursday, Nasheed was walking to his car when the bomb, on a parked motorcycle, went off, injuring him and two others.

There has been no claim of responsibility, but officials from his Maldivian Democratic Party have said political interests might have been involved. Nasheed had been vocal on the need to bring to justice some 72 suspects in a US$90 million theft case dating from the tenure of former strongman president Abdulla Yameen.