Adeeb freed from house arrest

Former vice president Ahmed Adeeb was freed from house arrest on Sunday after completing a 15-day sentence for contempt of court.

After three years in prison, Adeeb was transferred to house arrest last November in the wake of former president Abdulla Yameen’s defeat in the presidential election. By late May, his 33-year jail sentence on terrorism and corruption charges were wiped out by the appeal courts, citing political influence over his trials.

Ahmed Naseem, a spokesman from Maldives Correctional Service, told the Maldives Independent that Adeeb was no longer under custody. There were no more sentences to serve, he noted. 

The contempt of court sentence against Adeeb was passed during a secret hearing in January 2018.

The sentence was completed after he returned to the country from medical leave in India earlier this month, the MCS spokesman added.

According to media reports, the Supreme Court imposed a travel ban on Adeeb in late June.

In May, the High Court ordered a retrial over an alleged attempt to assassinate former president Yameen and instructed the Prosecutor General’s office to seek a lower court order to keep Adeeb detained until a fresh trial.

However, the criminal court denied the request and dismissed 15 pending cases against Adeeb, including two for which the High Court had ordered retrials.

The criminal court’s council contended that moving ahead with Adeeb’s cases without “an investigation that is free of influence” would not be legitimate.

Prosecutor General Aishath Bisham, however, disagreed with the stance. Appeals will be filed with the Supreme Court challenging the High Court decisions, she told the press.

The High Court also overturned Adeeb’s eight-year jail sentence on  a corruption charge and ordered a retrial over the alleged embezzlement of US$5 million paid as a resort acquisition fee.

The ruling came days after the Supreme Court quashed his  10-year terror conviction over an alleged plot to use a pistol ahead of an anti-government protest in May 2015.