Maldives arrests judge, former legal official over court order

Wednesday, 10 February 2016 00:34 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: Police in the Maldives arrested a judge and former prosecutor general over their alleged involvement in a fraudulent court order to arrest President Abdulla Yameen, a presidential spokesman said on Monday.

But the main opposition, led by former president Mohamed Nasheed, said the government was trying to cover up corruption, including money laundering.

Nasheed, the Maldives’ first democratically elected president, was jailed for 13 years on terrorism charges last March over the alleged abduction of a judge, after a rapid trial that drew international condemnation. He is now in London for surgery.

On Sunday, a magistrate’s court from an atoll close to the Maldives capital Male, issued an arrest warrant for Yameen in a police investigation, government officials and police said.

In a statement, the police said a group of individuals influenced a judge to issue the warrant against Yameen.

Some of them tried to get police to act on the false court order, while another group of activists tried to stage a gathering outside Yameen’s official residence, police said.

“The warrant is fraudulent because it didn’t originate from any official authority,” presidential spokesman Ibrahim Hussain Shihab told Reuters.

Former Prosecutor General Muhuthaz Muhsin, who was impeached by parliament last year, and Ahmed Nihan, a magistrate’s court judge, were arrested on Sunday after an initial probe, he added.

The judge was charged “for making an invalid court order under the name of the Maafushi magistrate court to arrest the president,” his arrest warrant said.

Muhsin was later released and his lawyer said there was “not an iota of evidence” to charge his client, while a lawyer representing Nihan said his client never signed the arrest warrant and the signature was forged.

Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said it had evidence to implicate President Yameen in corrupt activities, however.

“Nasheed calls on the Maldives Police Service to uphold the law, and not to attempt to cover up evidence of President Yameen’s involvement in corruption, money laundering, terrorist financing,” the MDP said in a statement.