Maldives court frees jailed ex-president Yameen

MALE: Jailed former Maldives president Abdulla Yameen was freed on Thursday ater the High Court overturned his conviction and 11-year prison sentence on grat and money-laundering charges.

A three-judge High Court bench in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation held that Yameen’s 2022 trial had been unfair and ordered a new trial.

“The lower court ruling was not fair,” judge Hassan Shafeeu said while reading out a lengthy decision that was broadcast live.

The decision came ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, in which Yameen is fielding candidates from a political party he formed while serving his sentence.

Yameen was convicted on two charges ater a court found he accepted a bribe to grant a lease on a small islet for tourism development while he was in power between 2013 and 2018. Thursday’s ruling set that verdict aside. Yameen’s co-accused Yusuf Naeem, a businessman who was said to have paid the alleged bribe of $1 million, was also freed.

Yameen, 64, was held at the high-security Maafushi prison but was transferred to house arrest the day after his ally, Mohamed Muizzu, won presidential elections last September.

The pro-china former leader had borrowed heavily and built thousands of houses and other infrastructure in the small but strategically placed Indian Ocean archipelago during his five-year tenure. Yameen began cracking down on opponents ater amending the constitution in 2015 to allow foreigners to buy land for the first time in the archipelago, best known for its luxury beach resorts.

The move failed to atract the desired returns, with investors who had lined up more than a billion dollars scared off by simmering political tensions.

He instead turned to China and borrowed heavily for infrastructure projects, angering traditional benefactor India.

By the end of his term, Yameen had incarcerated almost every prominent politician who could have challenged his re-election.

His once-trusted deputy Ahmed Adeeb was thrown in prison, accused of orchestrating a bomb blast aboard the presidential yacht that wounded Yameen’s wife.

He even jailed the man who groomed him for power, his half-brother Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had been president for 30 years until 2008.