Police makes arrest in connection to dead woman found at construction site

The Maldives Police Service made an arrest on Monday in connection to the discovery of the body of a dead Maldivian woman, found hidden under some garbage bags at a construction site last Sunday.

Speaking at a news conference held at the Police Headquarters, Hamdhoon Rasheed, the Head Inspector of the Police’s Serious and Organized Crimes Unit, said that they had managed to identify the body as Mariyam Sheereen, 30, of Thundhi / Laamu atoll Gan. Her body had been found at the construction site of the house called M. Angaagiri. Hamdhoon further said that they had arrested a suspect and were interrogating him. Police did reveal further details about the suspect.

Hamdhoon said that Sheereen had been identified by taking fingerprints and matching it against their fingerprints database. Sheereen’s family members had also made a positive identification of the body. Hamdhoon said that Sheereen been missing since 31st December, 2009, according to her family. He refused to comment further on the case as it was a sensitive case and still under investigation.

At a news briefing held earlier near the crime scene at M. Angaagiri, Police said that the body had been discovered by an expatriate worker at the construction site. Police further said that the expatriate man had been removing some sacks filled with trash from the area when he had come across the decomposing body.

Sheereen had been living alone in a rented room at M. Kurahaage and her mom, Shareefa Ibrahim, said that she was still in shock over the sudden news of her daughter’s death. Grief-stricken, she told Haveeru reporters that she had last met her daughter around sunset last Thursday and that she had been called to identify Sheereen’s body while she was still searching for her missing daughter.

“She came over to my house last Thursday and spent some time here before heading out,” Sheereen’s mother said. “She came back later around sunset, looking for a mobile phone. She put her SIM in a phone and made a call to her boyfriend. She argued with him for a while, and he was outside at the time. Then she left and that was the last time I saw her.”

Sheereen is the mother of four and she and her mother had moved to Laamu atoll Gan after Shareefa’s resident island, Laamu atoll Mundu, was destroyed in the Tsunami. Three of Sheereen’s children live with their father. The fourth is living under Shareefa’s care.

When Shareefa couldn’t get a hold of Sheereen, she called a resident of Mundu who lived in the same apartment as Sheereen. The man told her that Sheereen’s slippers were outside her room but that she hadn’t come out for a while and that he was also waiting for her to come out.

“While talking to me on the phone, he banged on Sheereen’s door, called her name and asked if she was dead in there,” Shareefa said. “Then I called her boyfriend who said that she had gone shopping on Friday night and then left for a resort, carrying a bag.”

She said that Sheereen was not the kind of person who would leave for a resort without telling her mother and that even if she did, she would still call her on the phone at least. She further said that the Mundu man who was living in the same apartment as Sheereen had told her that on Friday night he had spied Sheereen, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, lying on the far side of the bed while her boyfriend was smoking a cigarette on the balcony. Their room door had been slightly ajar, which is why he had been able to see them as he was going past the door. He had told Shareefa that later the same night he had heard a loud noise and gone out to investigate. He had asked Sheereen’s boyfriend if he had heard the noise but the boyfriend had said that he had not heard any such noise.

Shareefa said that when she had not heard back from her daughter for a long time she had told Sheereen’s boyfriend that she was going to call the Police and file a missing person report and had asked him to open Sheereen’s apartment room door. When he unlocked the door Shareefa had found Sheereen’s handbag and the dress she had been wearing on Friday night still in the room. When Shareefa asked the boyfriend what Sheereen had been wearing when she went to the resort he had told her that Sheeren had been wearing shorts and a sweater.

“He was saying that Sheereen had gone to a resort to celebrate New Year,” Shareefa said. “But it’s not possible that she would go to a resort wearing what he said she was wearing. But still, I was hoping that she had gone to the resort.”

Although worried about Sheereen’s sudden disappearance, she had never ever imagined that she would be dead. But when she heard that a dead woman had been discovered by the Police, she had begun fearing the worst. Then Sheereen’s boyfriend had called her and told her that Sheereen’s was dead. She said that after that the boyfriend had kept calling her up constantly.

“He was the one who brought the Police even,” she said. “Later, we went to see the body and identified her.”

She said her daughter’s body had been in an advanced state of decomposition when she had gone to identify the body. She said that there were signs of some injuries around her neck and eyes. She further said that she was still wearing the earrings and studs that she usually wore, adding that she had also been wearing the clothes that she her boyfriend had alleged she had been wearing when she supposedly went off to the resort.