“This attack on me is, first and foremost, personal,” says Cadman

Late last week an article appeared in a British newspaper, The Independent. It stated that six months before Omnia began to advise the Government – and before that agreement was even first discussed, I – and BTP Advisers, an international PR firm – had spoken to a lobbyist for Nasheed who is a Conservative Member of the UK Parliament. This preliminary conversation was to see if we would be interested in representing the former President and took place – as The Independent has revealed – sometime before Nasheed appointed Ben Emmerson QC, Amal Clooney and Jared Genser to represent him. That I spoke to a British Conservative MP – that the newspaper chose not to name – is not a secret: Omnia, the Government and indeed the former President’s supporters have known of this for many months.

This attack on me is, first and foremost, personal – and one of many I have been receiving, as have many others, in the press and social media – when the Nasheed case should be purely a matter of law. Secondly, it has nothing to do with the charges against the former President – but then neither has his supporters’ call for sanctions, ejections from international bodies or accusations of impropriety by the advisers of the other side.

Instead, it is a sideshow. Supporters of the former President need to make as much noise in public and in the press as possible because the activities of which he is accused are so hard to contest in court, not least when he has confirmed them in media interviews on at least two occasions. The matter is now pending before the Supreme Court and he will now have the opportunity to make the points in a court of law that his legal time have long been making in the political arena.