High Court extends house arrest of opposition leaders charged with bribery and treason
03 Jul 2010, 3:35 PM
Ahmed Nazeer
In response to an appeal by police regarding People’s Alliance party leader MP Yameen Adul Gayoom and Jumhooree Party leader MP Gasim ‘Buruma’ Ibrahim, the High Court of Maldives has extended their house arrest to 15 days.
The Criminal Court had earlier ruled their house arrest was to be for three days.
The High Court judge said they were charged with treason and bribery, and 15 days was not a lengthy period to investigate those sort of crimes.
Police were concerned that if the men were kept in house arrest they could potentially disrupt the investigation and the gathering of information from witnesses.
However, High Court judge said that the police did not mention that they wanted the men to be in house arrest or in police custodial either.
Yameen and Gasim have said that they were not happy with the High Court ruling and would appeal to the Supreme Court.
Police arrested Yameen and Gasim on June 29, charging them with treason and bribery. Hours after the arrests, the Criminal Court ordered that Yameen and Gasim be brought to the court within one hour.
Police did not obey the order and claimed it was unlawful, and appealed to the High Court, which ruled that the Criminal Court’s order was lawful.
When Yameen and Gasim were presented at the Criminal Court, they were placed under house arrest for three days, and allowed to attend Majlis and committee meetings.
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