MALDIVES BLAST: EX-PRESIDENT ‘CRITICAL’ A DAY AFTER SURVIVING ‘TERROR’ ATTACK
MALÉ, MALDIVES: Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed was in a “critical” condition on Friday following an assassination attempt, doctors said.
Nasheed, 53, the Maldives’ first democratically elected president and still an important figure in the island nation’s murky politics, was rushed to hospital after an explosion on Thursday.
Since then, he has undergone 16 hours of life-saving operations in the capital Male for injuries to his head, chest, abdomen and limbs.
The private ADK hospital said on Friday evening that Nasheed was “in a critical condition in intensive care”.
In a televised address to the nation, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced that a team from the Australian federal police would arrive on Saturday to help with the investigation into the blast.
Solih described the attack as an assault on the fledgling democracy, promising the perpetrators “would face the full force of the law”.
Police said officials from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have also been asked to assist in the investigation.
Maldivian police said they were treating Thursday’s bomb attack as a “deliberate act of terror”. Police also said a device attached to a motorcycle was detonated as Nasheed got into a car in the capital.