New Delhi: After more than 15 months, former Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen is now a free man, after the High Court overturned his conviction for 11 years of prison for bribery and money laundering on Thursday.
The overturning of the December 2022 verdict comes just three days before Maldives goes to the hustings for its fourth multi-party parliamentary elections on April 21.
The former president had not been able to stand in the presidential elections last year due to his conviction. He had supported the opposition coalition’s candidate, Mohamed Muizzu, but had fallen out with him soon after latter’s victory in the elections.
Yameen had since formed his own party, People’s National Front (PNF), but it had not been able to field any candidates in the parliamentary elections.
The High Court on Thursday overturned two sentences given to Yameen – seven years for money laundering and three years for accepting bribes for leasing an atoll.
The local media outlet The Edition wrote that the three-judge bench stated the lower courts had not followed correct legal procedure in several instances and proceeded to call for a retrial.
After Muizzu became president, Yameen had been brought out of prison and into house arrest. He had become increasingly embittered publicly that the government had not done enough to ensure his release.
Earlier on Wednesday, President Muizzu had reportedly said that he was happy that the High Court had scheduled the sentence hearing on April 18, but had questioned the timing.
He claimed that the timing proved the opposition MDP’s influence over the judiciary as the verdict announcement came just a few days after the parliamentary speaker, MDP’s Mohammed Aslam, threatened to lodge a case with the Judicial Service Commission about the delay in Yameen’s appeal, The Sun reported.
Responding to Muizzu’s remarks, Yameen had said ahead of the verdict, as per the Sun report, that President Muizzu was unhappy that the court was finally issuing its judgement.
Incidentally, President Muizzu, has not endorsed many of the official party PNC candidates and instead backed several ‘independents’ ones, highlighting the factionalism in the party over Yameen loyalists.
Former President Abdulla Yameen’s government was perceived to be aligned with China, while his relationship with India, the regional power, was strained. He lost his bid for re-election in the 2018 presidential elections after Ibrahim Solih of the MDP-led coalition achieved a surprise victory.
