MALDIVIAN President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom said yesterday he would take action to ensure public safety, the day after a bomb was found near his official residence.

A dynamite stick connected to a remote-control device was discovered in a parked car and diffused by the military.

Home Minister Umar Naseer said he suspected Mr Yameen had been targeted “by the same people” behind an explosion on his speedboat last month.

Mr Yameen escaped injury or death in that blast, which injured his wife, an aide and a bodyguard, only because he was not sitting in his usual seat on the boat.

In an address to the nation, Mr Yameen said the explosion as he returned from the hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia had been “an act of greed to attain power.”

This was an apparent reference to Vice-President Ahmed Adeeb Abdul Ghafoor, who is being held for questioning over the alleged assassination attempt.

The FBI, which investigated at the Maldives’ request, said on Saturday that had it found no evidence that a bomb had caused the boat explosion.

Mr Yameen’s comments came on the 27th anniversary of a coup attempt to unseat his half-brother from the presidency with the help of mercenaries from neighbouring Sri Lanka.

Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives from 1978 until losing the country’s first democratic election in 2008, survived the attempt.

The president said that there were those at home and abroad who desired to destroy the peace of the islands.

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