Police in the Maldives raided the offices of a critical news outlet and prevented its editors from leaving the country after the outlet published a documentary accusing President Mohamed Muizzu of having an affair with a former aide.

The government on Tuesday defended the operation against Adhadhu Online as a lawful response to what Muizzu has described as “baseless lies”, News.Az reports, citing Al Jazeera.

Police were “right to investigate and raid the news outlet over false [adultery] allegations against the President,” Minister of Homeland Security Ali Ihusaan said in a post on X.

“Press freedom is guaranteed, but not a free pass to destroy reputations with lies,” he said.

The raid took place late on Monday night, with police seizing laptops and storage devices, hours after Muizzu called on “relevant authorities to press charges against all parties who spread such false information”.

The documentary, titled Aisha and posted on Adhadhu’s X and Facebook accounts on March 28, featured an anonymised interview with a woman who claimed she had had a sexual relationship with Muizzu.

The woman, who said she was a 22-year-old single mother, said the affair took place last year, shortly after she joined the President’s Office as an administrator. Muizzu is 47, married, and a father of three.

The documentary was released days before a constitutional referendum that delivered a stinging midterm rebuke to Muizzu, with 69 percent of voters rejecting a government proposal on April 4 to align presidential and parliamentary election cycles. Critics had said the plan would undermine checks and balances in the country.

News.Az 

By Ulviyya Salmanli