Colonel Nazim transferred to house arrest

Former Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim was transferred to house arrest last Thursday with the prisons authority citing repairs in his unit at the high-security Maafushi jail.

The retired colonel has been shifted between jail and house arrest since early 2015 when he was found guilty of weapons smuggling and sentenced to 11 years.

In January this year, a UN rights panel found that Nazim was not afforded a fair trial and backed his assertion that he was framed by Specialist Operations police officers. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention urged the authorities to immediately release him but the government rejected the non-binding judgement.

In June last year, the apex court refused to hear Nazim’s appeal despite an admission by the police that former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb’s DNA was found on the pistol.