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Police in the Maldives arrested the Indian Ocean nation's former president Mohamed Nasheed on Monday after he didn't show up for a trial over accusations against him of abuse of power, CNN reported.

His arrest is the latest twist in the political turmoil this year that has shaken the Maldives, a popular tourist destination consisting of hundreds of coral islands south of India.

The authorities took Nasheed into custody at around 9:45 a.m. local time while he was campaigning on a remote island of the archipelago for upcoming presidential elections, according to police and the former president's Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).

"We believe Nasheed's arrest is politically motivated, aimed solely at preventing him from campaigning ahead of the presidential elections," Ahmed Naseem, who served as foreign minister under Nasheed, said in a statement on the party's website.

Nasheed, the predominantly Muslim nation's first democratically elected president, resigned in February amid a police revolt prompted by his arrest of a top criminal court judge.

The former president and his supporters say he was forced from office at gunpoint in a coup orchestrated by his political opponents. But his successor and former vice president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, insists the transfer of power was legitimate.