Fugitive admits to paying Omnia Stategy on behalf of Maldives government

“Let’s say Al Capone were to come along and tell you to do something, well you would just do it. In the Maldives, the president and Vice President are like Al Capone, so I did what they said,” says Mohamed Allam Latheef, owner of a company implicated in the Maldives biggest corruption scandal.

Omnia paid £200,000 by company implicated in Maldives’ biggest corruption scandal

Omnia Strategy, a legal consultancy firm chaired by Cherie Blair, the wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, was paid more than £200,000 by a company implicated in the Maldives’ biggest corruption scandal, The Daily Mail has revealed.

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

Responding to allegations of pitching the government and the opposition, Cadman writes: “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.”

“We shouldn’t rest until Mohamed Nasheed is a free man”: Richard Branson

Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon suggested that the celebrity status of Nasheed’s lawyers has a “very big impact” on international media coverage and shapes international opinion on the opposition leader’s case.

Lawyers defend call for targeted sanctions to secure Nasheed’s release

Reiterating calls for targeted sanctions against Maldivian government officials if Nasheed is not released, the opposition leader’s international lawyers Amal Clooney, Jared Genser, and Ben Emmerson said his case is “emblematic of a broader, brutal crackdown on democracy and human rights involving not only the former president, but also large parts of the population.”

A Political Trial or the Trial of a Politician?

The case of the former President Mohamed Naseed is in danger of being manipulated for purely political ends. It is therefore important that we remind ourselves of the facts so that judgment does not become clouded, writes Toby Cadman, partner at Omnia Strategy.

Government assures investigation of alleged bugging of ex-president’s meeting with lawyers

Following international media coverage of the alleged secret surveillance, the prisons authority said in a statement – posted in English on Twitter by the foreign ministry yesterday – that the “suggestion that the Maldives Correctional Services or the government is responsible for this infringement is wholeheartedly rejected.”

Comment: Did former Maldives leader receive a fair trial?

In such a politically charged case, media reporting can take a sensationalist and selective approach, writes Toby Cadman. “As with all cases, there are two sides to any argument, but the government’s position has not been given any attention and the offence for which the former president was convicted has been unnecessarily trivialized.”

Government responds to UN on ex-president’s terrorism trial

The Maldivian government, in a response to the UN working group on arbitrary detention today, contended a terrorism conviction against former president Mohamed Nasheed was not politically motivated and that allegations of lack of due process is factually incorrect.

Blair’s Omnia accused of lying over Maldives contract

Omnia Strategy helping government respond to UN working group on arbitrary detention

Blairs take on President Yameen as client