Resolution to free Nasheed goes to Parliament

The Maldivian Paliament has accepted the resolution to advising the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor General’s Office and overrule the 13-year prison sentence and free the former President, Mohamed Nasheed, to be discussed and passed at a Committee of the Parliament. 

Presenting the resolution, MP or North Galolhu constituency, Eva Abdulla, said that it is time that the ex-President returned to the country and should return as a free man.  

She said that the whole world is in agreement that President Nasheed was sentenced unjustly and the opportunity to raise the voice against that injustice in the Parliament must be grasped.  

At the Parliament sitting today, 48 MPs voted to accept the bill to the floor while five MPs voted against and four MPs abstained from voting.  

The resolution calls for three major overrules:  

• The 13-year prison sentence passed against the former President, Mohamed Nasheed.  

• The court order issued by the Criminal Court on 29 August 2016 to arrest the former President, Nasheed for failing to return to the country after going abroad on a medical visit.  

• The pending terrorism charges against the former President, Mohamed Nasheed, under the suspicion of unlawful arrest of the MP for Maamigili constituency, Qasim Ibrahim, and then MP for Mulaku constituency and current President, Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom.  

The terrorism charges for the unlawful arrests have now been overruled and the Prosecutor General’s Office has filed with the Supreme Court today to review the 13-year prison sentence.  

The resolution accepted to the Parliament today states that when the former President, Nasheed, was arrested on 22 February 2015, he was not brought in front of a judge for a remand hearing in the first 24 hours of his arrest. And with the assistance of an attorney, the former President was charged with terrorism at the Criminal Court, went through the trial with hearings every day and was convicted of terrorism with 19 days.  

And when the case was filed with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the committee noted that President Nasheed was restricted from some of his rights granted by the international human rights agreements along with some of his rights as a politician.  

The resolution also said that the Maldivian government had refused to accept the findings but since the Maldives is part of the treaties, failing to abide by them is a direction violation of responsibilities of the state.