The Criminal Court has sentenced former Managing Director of the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC), Abdulla Ziyath to 11 years in prison.

During Monday’s hearing at the Criminal Court, the sentences for 32 of the charges raised against him were heard. At an earlier hearing, the court found him guilty on the 32 charges, after being arrested during 2015.

The court had lessened the prison sentence for him as Ziyath had pleaded guilty on the charges raised against him, all revolving around the MMPRC embezzlement where acquisition fees for lagoons and islands were embezzled. Most of them include the embezzlement of over one million USD.

As such, Ziyath was given an 18-day prison sentence for laundering the USD 2.5 million.

He was earlier sentenced to eight years in prison during June 2016, over his involvement in the embezzlement of USD five million paid as an acquisition cost for Maabinhura Island in Lhaviyani Atoll through MMPRC.

In November 2018, the High Court upheld his conviction and Ziyath filed an appeal at the Supreme Court. However, the appeal was withdrawn by the defendant, later.

At an appeal hearing held on November 23, the court was informed by prosecutors that Ziyath had signed a plea deal, having agreed to cooperate with investigations into MMPRC’s embezzlement case.