<p class="title">The Maldives government is seeking international help to find millions of dollars allegedly siphoned off by former president Abdulla Yameen who faces embezzlement and money laundering charges, officials said Friday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Maldivian diplomats said authorities in the Indian Ocean archipelago were in talks with foreign experts as part of a police investigation against the leader who lost power last September.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Police have now completed their investigations. The Prosecutor General can now formally charge the former president," Aslam Shakir, spokesman for the Maldives embassy in Colombo, told AFP.</p>.<p class="bodytext">He said police investigations had found evidence linking Yameen and his justice minister Azima Shakoor to the theft of state funds and money laundering.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In December, courts in the tourist paradise froze some $6.5 million in accounts allegedly linked to Yameen who suffered a shock defeat to Mohamed Ibrahim Solih in elections in September.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Shakir said millions of dollars could be stashed abroad and talks were underway with foreign entities to repatriate any cash found. He did not name the countries involved.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"We are getting foreign financial forensic help. We are also getting the expertise of others in connection with several cases of disappearances of people during Yameen's regime," Shakir said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">An anti-establishment journalist Mohamed Rilwan vanished in August 2014 and is widely believed to have been abducted by figures linked to Yameen's government.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Yameen, who had been in power since 2013, jailing or forcing into exile many of his opponents, has also been accused of receiving close to $1.5 million in illicit payments during his failed bid for re-election.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The country's monetary authority lodged a police complaint about alleged donations made into a private account held by Yameen in the runup to the polls.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The former strongman president, who has been questioned but not detained, has denied the allegations.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Yameen remains politically active. But since his downfall, almost all key dissidents have returned to the country and been cleared of convictions against them.</p>
<p class="title">The Maldives government is seeking international help to find millions of dollars allegedly siphoned off by former president Abdulla Yameen who faces embezzlement and money laundering charges, officials said Friday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Maldivian diplomats said authorities in the Indian Ocean archipelago were in talks with foreign experts as part of a police investigation against the leader who lost power last September.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Police have now completed their investigations. The Prosecutor General can now formally charge the former president," Aslam Shakir, spokesman for the Maldives embassy in Colombo, told AFP.</p>.<p class="bodytext">He said police investigations had found evidence linking Yameen and his justice minister Azima Shakoor to the theft of state funds and money laundering.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In December, courts in the tourist paradise froze some $6.5 million in accounts allegedly linked to Yameen who suffered a shock defeat to Mohamed Ibrahim Solih in elections in September.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Shakir said millions of dollars could be stashed abroad and talks were underway with foreign entities to repatriate any cash found. He did not name the countries involved.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"We are getting foreign financial forensic help. We are also getting the expertise of others in connection with several cases of disappearances of people during Yameen's regime," Shakir said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">An anti-establishment journalist Mohamed Rilwan vanished in August 2014 and is widely believed to have been abducted by figures linked to Yameen's government.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Yameen, who had been in power since 2013, jailing or forcing into exile many of his opponents, has also been accused of receiving close to $1.5 million in illicit payments during his failed bid for re-election.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The country's monetary authority lodged a police complaint about alleged donations made into a private account held by Yameen in the runup to the polls.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The former strongman president, who has been questioned but not detained, has denied the allegations.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Yameen remains politically active. But since his downfall, almost all key dissidents have returned to the country and been cleared of convictions against them.</p>