COLOMBO: Former Maldives president Abdulla Yameen is under investigation for corruption, police said yesterday, after a court ordered accounts holding $6.5 million to be frozen.

Yameen, who was defeated in a September election, was interviewed by police on the honeymoon islands on Saturday. He has been dogged by allegations that he received close to $1.5 million in illicit payments during his failed bid for re-election in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation.

The country's monetary authority has lodged a police complaint about the alleged donations made into a private account held by Yameen in two suspicious tranches, local media reported.

The former strongman president, who ruled the popular holiday islands with an iron fist, jailing or exiling his opponents, has denied the allegations. Yameen relied heavily on China for political and financial support in the nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims, troubling neighboring India.- AFP