The criminal court has found the former chief prosecutor guilty of terrorism for conspiring to kidnap President Abdulla Yameen.
Muhthaz Muhsin was handed a 17-year jail term tonight.
Husnu Suood, Muhsin’s lawyer, has branded the trial unfair and said he intends to launch an appeal immediately.
Muhsin is accused of forging an arrest warrant for Yameen’s arrest on February 7.
Prosecutors claim Muhsin had traveled to a magistrate court on the
island of Maamigili in Alif
Dhaal Atoll at 3:30am on February 7 to seek a
fake warrant against the president.
At the time, the auditor general’s office had issued a damning audit
report revealing the theft of some US$80million from state coffers. The
opposition blames Yameen for the historic scandal, but the president
claims his former deputy masterminded the theft.
Muhsin’s lawyers said he had only traveled to Maamigilli on the
orders of senior police officers, and had no intent of securing a fake
warrant.
He was accompanied by several policemen and two civilians.
The defence said Muhsin left Maamigili when one of the civilians
accompanying him claimed a warrant had been obtained in Malé. The
warrant from another magistrate court was handed to the police by a man
called Siraj, lawyers said, and had no link to Muhsin.
Suood said: “The court refused to summon key defence witnesses. We
called a deputy commissioner of police to prove Muhsin traveled on the
police’s orders, but he refused to provide testimony.”
The verdict was issued by the Judge Abdul Bari Yoosuf, the acting
chief judge of the criminal court. Bari read out the verdict moments
after sentencing former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb and two of his
military bodyguards to lengthy jail terms on terrorism charges.
source-http://maldivesindependent.com/politics/ex-chief-prosecutor-found-guilty-of-terrorism-for-conspiring-to-kidnap-president-124765
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