Transcript: MNDF Staff Sergeant Shafraz Naeem’s CoNI account of Feb 7 mutiny
02 Mar 2013, 6:36 PM
Azra Naseem
This article was first published by Dhivehi Sitee. Republished with permission.
On 7 February 2012, MNDF Staff Sergeant Shafraz Naeem was commanding Bravo, one of the Bandara Koshi Battalion riot squads that confronted the mutinying SO police in front of the military headquarters. He resigned five days later.
“I have lost faith in the institution,” he told the Commission of National Inquiry [CoNI] later. This is Shafraz Naeem’s account of what occurred during the mutiny, reconstructed from the transcript CoNI’s interview with him on 7 July.
UPDATE: In communications with Dhivehi Sitee since the above post was published, Shafraz Naeem has said the CoNI transcript is inaccurate. Among the clarifications he would like to make are the following:
He arrived back at Bandara Koshi the following day [8 February] at 2:30 p.m., not 8:30 p.m. as recorded in the transcript.
He stated that he was not a fan of how President Nasheed handled the MNDF, not that he was ‘never a big fan of Nasheed.’
Parts of his conversation with General Shiyam about the naval base have been left out.
A heated exchange between Shafraz and Co-Chair, Ismail Shafeeu, on command and control–who was responsible for its loss and how it happened–has been omitted from the transcript.