Government accused of hindering Nasheed’s Supreme Court appeal

Lawyers representing jailed former President Mohamed Nasheed are working round the clock to file an appeal of his terrorism conviction at the Supreme Court by Sunday.

But the government, which has long-insisted Nasheed should exhaust all domestic appeal processes, is now hindering the appeal by barring lawyers from directly handing over legal documents to Nasheed’s hands for private review, lawyers said on Friday.

The Maldives Correctional Services says documents can only be handed to inmates via its head offices in Malé. But lawyers said that the rule breaches lawyer-client protocol as the government may intercept legally privileged communications, thereby endangering Nasheed’s right to fair trial.

“These documents contain our arguments, our strategy. We have no confidence in the MCS, if documents are handed to them, in the three days before they hand over to President Nasheed, they may photocopy the documents,” lawyer Hisaan Hussain told the press on Friday.

Nasheed, whose imprisonment the UN has called illegal and arbitrary, is being held at a high security prison on Maafushi Island, an hour away from the capital by speedboat.

He was sentenced to 13 years in jail in March on a charge of ordering the military detention of criminal court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed. The 19-day trial was widely criticized for lack of due process.

The MCS is now allowing lawyers two-hour visits with Nasheed daily, but they say it is not enough as the appeal documents consist of 50 separate files which amount to more than 800 pages.

Hassan Latheef, another lawyer representing Nasheed, said: “We are once again seeing a repeat of the procedural violations that marked the criminal court proceedings, and led to criticism by the international community.”

Appeal documents must remain confidential until the court delivers them to the prosecutor general’s office, Hassan added.

source- http://maldivesindependent.com/