MALE – A criminal court has awarded nearly five months jail to country’schief justice after it found him guilty of obstructing governmentadministration and justice, for the first time in the history of theMaldives.
The court sentenced Abdulla Saeed to four months and 24 days for allegedlyshutting down the Supreme Court’s Government E-letter Management System(GEMS) in the wake of its landmark ruling on Feb 1. The court had orderedthe release of President Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s nine political rivals,including Mohamed Nasheed, the country’s first president elected in a freeelection in 2008, and to reinstate unseated legislators.
The political chaos of Maldives – the honeymoon islands – deepened in earlyFeb after the chief justice and other top judges of the apex court werearrested following proclamation of emergency by President Yameen aftercourt orders.
Following the initial verdict, letters were sent to the court requesting toreview the ruling, but the top court refused to accept the lettersdeliberately on Saeed’s orders, the government claimed.
Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges but nowlives in Britain after receiving asylum. Nasheed’s release would haveallowed him to contest a presidential election later this year in aformidable challenge to Yameen’s re-election bid.
After the arrests of their colleagues, the remaining three Supreme Courtjustices nullified their order to release Yameen’s opponents.