Former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb's lawyers have revealed that they will be submitting a petition to the UN working group on arbitrary detention, citing that he was illegally handed over to Maldivian security personnel.

Adeeb was stopped by intelligence agency officials from entering India via a ship located off the coast of Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu recently. During the time of his attempted escape, his passport was withheld by the Supreme Court over an ongoing case.

A team of international lawyers hired by Adeeb later revealed that he was seeking political asylum in India because he feared for his life if he stayed back in the Maldives.

However, Indian authorities have since denied Adeeb entry into India, and has handed him over to a team of Maldivian security personnel. Adeeb is currently under the arrest of Maldives Police Service, and is being brought back to the Maldives under their custody.

A press release issued by his lawyers on Sunday raised concerns over the fact that he was illegally handed over to Maldivian security personnel, which was against not just Indian laws but international ones as well.

The statement noted that even though Indian authorities claimed that Adeeb was being held in international waters, photographs provided to them by local journalists show that the boat in which he was being held in was a few meters away from the port of Tuticorin.

"The rules of international waters are dictated by international law, notably the 1982 UN convention on the Law of the Sea. It is noted that international waters are largely considered to be 12 nautical miles from the coastline, anything less are essentially considered to be sovereign waters and the jurisdiction of that state as it were part of its land. The argument put forward by the Indian authorities is therefore unsustainable in law," the statement read.

The press statement further noted that since he is now being detained unlawfully with no access to lawyers, they will petition the UN Special Procedures in Geneva, in particular the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.