Death penalty bluster masks Maldives drug policy blunders

The president's proposal to revise the 2010 drug law in order to "impose harsher punishments, including the death penalty as is the case in some other countries" was met with skepticism at home and criticism from international human rights organisations.

Nine groups including Amnesty International urged the government to "desist from pursuing these amendments and abolish this cruel punishment.”

International conventions and UN safeguards restrict the death penalty to the “most serious crimes" such as intentional killing, the groups observed, noting that only four countries executed individuals for drug offences in 2024.

They questioned the president's characterisation of the death penalty as a tool to build a "generation free from drugs." Such zero tolerance approaches are unsupported by evidence of a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment, the groups noted. After decades of enforcing the death penalty and other punitive responses to drug-related crime, the global drug market is growing steadily and shifting rapidly. 

“Effective drug control policies must be centred around health and rights, addressing the root causes that lead people to engage in the drug market, including poverty, unemployment and marginalisation,” the groups advised.

The current proposal represents the country's latest reversal on capital punishment. In December 2018, the Maldives changed its position under political pressure, voting against a UN resolution supporting a death penalty moratorium after initially planning to vote in favour. Fours year before that, former president Abdulla Yameen attempted to lift the de facto moratorium. Despite religious campaign rhetoric and offering various dates, his administration never followed through.

Defence lawyer Hamza Latheef flagged the absence of a graded scale for drug trafficking as a key problem for implementing the death penalty, referring to minimum amounts prescribed in the drug law. 

"The moment the threshold is reached, for example if it's cannabis it is 14 grams, once that threshold is reached, whether they find 14 grams or 1,400 grams, they are subject to the same punishment. There is no difference in sentencing," he told the Maldives Independent.

Current trends show recreational drug users often stock above 20 or 30 grams of cannabis at home with no intention of sale to a third party, he noted.

"The law is trying to punish people who are selling it widely. In such circumstances, if this person fits into a criminal category, when a certain threshold is reached, it's a very dangerous outcome," he explained.

"So if determining punishments is set without a way to draw that distinction, I will object to that."

Hamza cast doubt on whether a harsher regime would fix the longstanding problem of drug abuse. The Maldives already has death penalty in the statute books, he noted. But in practice, the death penalty is life imprisonment. "We do not implement it. Instead we take care of people for 99 years under state expenditure. I don't know how this solves any issue," he said.

He noted that harsh sentences already waste judicial resources. State prosecutors expend a lot of time and effort to secure convictions regardless of the amount involved – drug analysis, urine tests, expert testimony. Even someone seeking rehabilitation could hope for no better than 12 years and six months in a plea deal.

The punishment for drug use under Islamic shariah is flogging with 40 lashes.

"Capital punishment is not prescribed for drug-related offences, so it should not be implemented," Sheikh Hussein Rasheed Ahmed told the Maldives Independent.

The religious scholar questioned whether the death penalty could be implemented fairly in the Maldives, citing a lack of public trust in either police investigations or the ability of courts to dispense justice. "When a punishment prescribed in Islam comes upon someone, it has to be very just. The determination of sentences has to be fair. That fairness is lacking in Maldives," he said.

"Killing a soul is not a small matter. These issues will not stop even if we implement the death penalty. It will only stop with awareness of the dangers of these actions."

Hamza, who also studied sharia, was unaware of significant guidance from Islamic jurisprudence on how to punish drug traffickers. Many Muslim countries have adopted models recommended by UN agencies to develop a remedy, he said, highlighting shariah's reformatory outlook.

"So if the aim is more towards rehabilitation than retributive justice, killing someone means ridding any chance of rehabilitating them and that should be the absolute last resort," he suggested.

Police statistics show reported drug incidents declined from 1,752 in 2023 to 1,672 in 2024, though 2025 has already seen 1,201 incidents.

Neither academic research nor the Maldivian experience could blame the absence of the death penalty for the failure to stem the flow of drugs, according to the local chapter of Transparency International. On the contrary, research from the UNODC and UNDP indicates that the root causes are poverty, lack of socioeconomic upwards mobility, corruption, and lack of opportunities for young people, a Transparency Maldives official told the Maldives Independent. 

"When we study the local drivers, we can see that it is the lack of effective rehabilitation and reintegration that worsens the recidivism and ultimately keeps young people trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty and crime, rather than the absence of executions," she observed.

Transparency Maldives and UNDP research show the majority of the prison population is made up of recidivists or repeat offenders with about 100 first time offenders annually. 

"This high rate of recidivism and relapse is also worsened due to systemic gaps such as lack of resources for effective rehabilitation and reintegration. Despite having a strong Drug Act that provides for rehabilitative treatment and community-based approaches, there are significant gaps in the effective implementation of this legislation," she said.

"In fact, we can see from countries such as Norway which boasts a low recidivism rate that rehabilitation and education are prioritised over punishment within their correctional facilities. Similarly, countries like the Netherlands and Japan have established personal, communal, structural, and financial support systems that facilitate reintegration which have proven effective in addressing the challenge of recidivism," she said.

Hamza noted the economic reality behind the drug trade that makes deterrence through punishment unlikely. Through his cases, he has seen investments of US$ 20,000 bring profits of US$ 60,000 to US$ 80,000. "That is a huge margin. While this is the case, if enforcement is weak, young entrepreneurs would want to take that risk," he said.

Transparency Maldives stressed the risks of wrongful conviction and disproportionate punishment: "A flawed justice system means innocent people could be executed." She feared the death penalty could push the country away from proven effective solutions such as prevention, restorative justice, rehabilitation and treatment, and social reintegration.

If executions resume, families would suffer the trauma of losing loved ones, who would more often be low-level offenders rather than major traffickers or leaders within drug cartels. The latter are more likely to have access to better legal representation and political connections that allow them to evade prosecution, the Transparency official suggested.

"It is important to acknowledge the difference in levels of access, opportunity and resources for those who are marginalised. Those without sufficient financial capacity cannot afford proper legal representation and defence, making it difficult to endure lengthy legal processes, such as appeals," she said.

She emphasised the language barriers, policing bias and difficulties in hiring lawyers that migrant workers face under the Maldives criminal justice system, where the provision of mental health support is rare.

Moreover, as recreational drug users tend to carry relatively high quantities, such cases could risk disproportionate punishment in the absence of restorative justice principles and rehabilitative avenues, she warned, noting that such groups were most likely to be caught up in drug offences because of push factors such as economic desperation and mental turmoil.

"What this ultimately does is reinforce the cycles of inequality, poverty, and crime. It also creates barriers to access to justice, with the poor at a disadvantage," she said.

In July 2016, the UN Human Rights Committee asked the government to halt the execution of Hussain Humam Ahmed pending the outcome of a review of his case.

Hamza noted the small pool of defence attorneys in the Maldives, many of whom often accept cases because defendants have no choice but to approach the same cohort of lawyers.

"As a defence attorney myself, we are not able to provide representation of the highest quality because of time and resource constraints," he said.

Hamza feared that casual substance abusers among the youth could be targeted instead of dangerous criminals. "It is the biggest open secret that people make mistakes when they are young. When we mature we are very judgemental and criticise young people a lot," he said.

"Even in sharia, the death penalty is reserved for the most violent, only for instances where a human life is taken without any justification. A life for a life. This punishment we are discussing now cannot be compared to that."