Resolution passed for review of Nasheed’s conviction

Parliament passed Monday a resolution calling on the Prosecutor General and the courts to review the terrorism conviction of former president Mohamed Nasheed.

The non-binding resolution was passed with a strong majority of 57 MPs from the 85-member house. Nine MPs from the outgoing ruling party party voted No.

After the resolution was submitted last month, the Prosecutor General’s office asked the Supreme Court to review Nasheed’s 13-year jail sentence. Days later, the court stayed the sentence, clearing the way for the opposition leader’s return after nearly three years in exile.

The 51-year-old has since been visiting strongholds of support across the country.

Before it was passed at Monday’s sitting of parliament, the resolution was amended at the committee stage to call on the authorities to review the cases of others convicted after politically motivated trials.

Submitted by MP Eva Abdulla, the resolution referred to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s 2015 ruling that Nasheed’s jailing was illegal.

The government’s rejection of the “non-binding opinion” was a violation of the country’s international obligations under the UN Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it contended.

The government also remained defiant when the UN Human Rights Committee decided in March this year that Nasheed’s right to contest elections must be restored.

Nasheed was found guilty of ordering the “abduction” of a judge after a rushed and widely criticised trial in March 2015.

Nasheed secured political asylum in the UK after he was granted medical leave from prison in January 2016.

The Supreme Court upheld his verdict in June 2016.

Last Thursday, the court suspended the jail sentence of former defence minister Tholhath Ibrahim Kaleyfaanu, who was also convicted over the military’s detention of the criminal court’s chief judge.