Boy scouts aspire to do at least one good deed every day but few can match the claim of 15-year-old Mohamed Jaisham. He saved the life of his country’s President.

When a knifeman emerged from the crowd and lunged at Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, President of the Maldives, the teenager wrestled him to the ground and seized the blade.

The attacker had wrapped a kitchen knife in the national flag of the Maldives and launched his attack as President Gayoom greeted supporters at the opening of a renewable energy project.

However, Mohamed, wearing the characteristic green Scout uniform with scarf and woggle, lived up to the Scout motto of “Be Prepared”. He stepped between the knifeman and President Gayoom, suffering an injury to his hand in the ensuing scuffle. The President was unharmed, although the knife ripped his shirt.

“I have been saved thanks to Mohamed Jaisham and Allah,” President Gayoom said in a national radio address after the incident.

The attack took place on the island of Hoarafushi, one of the most populated in the northern Maldives, with 3,000 residents.

The attacker was named by police as Mohamed Murshid, 20. No motive was given and other details were not disclosed. Residents on the island described the man as having extreme religious views.

However, a presidential spokesman said he suspected that the attack was more likely the work of President Gayoom’s political rivals than Islamist hardliners and saw no connection with a bomb blast in Male, the capital, in late September. That had raised fears of nascent militancy by al-Qaeda in the traditionally peaceful Islamic archipelago.

“We want to work out if this attack was orchestrated, or if he was working of his own devices,” Muhammad Shareef said. “I think this is more to do with \ than anything else.”

President Gayoom has ruled the chain of 1,200 mostly uninhabited islands 500 miles (800km) off the toe of India for three decades and is the longest-serving ruler in Asia. He faces the country’s first multiparty elections this year and is running for re-election. Political opponents describe the 71-year-old President as a dictator who rules like a sultan of old, and say it is time that he handed over control of a land best known for luxury honeymoons and world-class scuba diving.

But if the Scout Association of Maldives — its badge features a fish — requires a prominent figure to present its young hero with a special badge to recognise his achievement, it should look to its leader himself: President Gayoom holds the honorary title of Chief Scout of the Maldives.

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