Author: Ahmed Nazeer

Police confiscate alcohol during New Year’s Eve safari boat raids

Police conducted raids on five safari boats docked in waters surrounding the island of Hulhumale’  last night (December 31) after receiving information that the vessels had failed to comply with local regulations on keeping and trading alcohol.

The Maldives Police Service has said in a statement that 245 bottles of alcohol found on the five boats were confiscated during last night’s operation over concerns they were not being kept in compliance with national regulations.

Speaking to Minivan News today, Police Spokesperson Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef said that the regulations and laws outlining the trade and possession of alcohol on tourist resorts and safari boats were not found to have been met in some of the cases on the boats inspected by officers.

”Regulations have been made to determine the procedures of how alcohol should be stored and traded for tourism purposes in order to control the distribution for locals,” Haneef said. ”These bottles were not stored in compliance with the regulations.”

The case of the alcohol found aboard the boats was now being investigated by the Police Drug Enforcement Department.

No arrests were made during the operation.

On August 31 last year, officers conducted a similar operation, seizing 106 bottles and 40 cans of beer from a safari boat docked at Hulhumale’.

Police at the time stated that the safari boat that was the focus of the operation had failed to correctly follow procedures allowing vessels to store and trade alcohol to foreign guests.

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Three arrested on suspicion of drugging, raping 13 year-old girl

A 13 year-old living on Gahdhoo in Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll was last week sexually assaulted in an abandoned home on the island after being drugged and abducted, police have said.

Minivan News understands that the 13 year-old is not originally from Gahdhoo, but had been living with relatives at the time of the attack.

The attack, which occurred on December 26, is the third suspected case of sexual abuse of a minor to have been reported over the last week.

Police Spokesperson Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef confirmed today that two 16 year-old males and an 18 year-old man had been arrested on December 27 in connection with the alleged rape. However, he could not specify further details on the case as investigations were continuing.

The Maldives Police Service confirmed that the detention period of the suspects had also been extended from three to 15 days.

Details of the suspected attack were released the same day that police also publicised a picture of a man accused of molesting another 13 year-old girl in a separate incident in Male’ yesterday (December 30).

Police said that the incident occurred last night in the capital, identifying the suspect as Saeed Ahmed, 55.  Authorities have requested the public share any information regarding Saeed’s whereabouts.

According to police, the suspect is accused of entering a house where the 13 year-old girl was staying at around 9:30pm before sexually assaulting her.

Vili-Male’ attack

On Saturday (December 29), police said they had arrested a 33 year-old man on suspicion of the rape of a girl below 16 years of age in Vili-Male’.

The man identified as Mohamed Abdushukoor, 33, of Galolhu Red Coral, was accused of forcing the under-aged victim into a house in Vili-Male’ at about 1:00pm while she was out walking with her 14 year-old brother.

Police accused the suspect of keeping the pair in separate rooms as he sexually abused the girl. The incident was reported to the Police Family and Child Protection Unit.

According to an unpublished 2009 study on violence against minors, almost one in seven children of secondary school age in the Maldives have been sexually abused.

The same study claimed that sexual abuse rate of girls in the country was found to be almost twice as high than cases recorded against boys.

One in five Maldivian girls has been sexually abused – while the figure for boys was 11 percent.  Female minors were particularly at risk in the capital Male’, the report found.

A 2007 study on Women’s Health and Life Experiences meanwhile found that one in three Maldivian women aged 15 to 49 experience either physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives, including childhood sexual abuse.

In recent years, local authorities and NGOs have released a number of findings highlighting the extent of child abuse and wider sexual assaults within society.

The state-run Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital’s (IGMH’s) Family Protection Unit reported in 2010 that the centre was notified of 42 cases of rape between 2005-2010. Most of these cases were found to involve minors.

According to the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives, 13 rape cases were reported last year alone, the majority of which most were gang rapes or assaults involving minors.

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Muheeth heirs approve death sentence

The Juvenile Court has today finished taking statements from the heirs of Abdul Muheeth, 21, who was murdered earlier this year in Male’, according to local media.

Muheeth’s heirs were reported to have all approved passing the death sentence against the trial’s defendants should they be found guilty.

With the statements of Muheeth’s family now taken, the Juvenile Court today asked prosecutors to submit any evidence they have against the three defendants when it next reconvened.

If the state did not have any more evidence to provide against the defendants, the presiding judge said that closing statements from both sides would be heard.

When presiding over murder cases, the judiciary is required to obtain statements from all the heirs of the deceased before passing a sentence.  Islamic Sharia states that the death sentence can only be issued should all heirs of a murder victim approve such sentencing.

Abdul Muheeth of G. Veyru was rushed to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) after he was stabbed at 1:45am near the Finance Ministry building on February 19. He later died during treatment.

In March, Police Inspector Abdulla Satheeh said Muheeth was mistakenly killed by a gang and that he was not the intended target.

Police previously announced that Muheeth was not a member of any gangs, adding that he also held a responsible job at the time of his death

Death sentence

Article 88[d] of the Maldives Penal Code states that murders should be dealt with according to Islamic Sharia and that persons found guilty of murder “shall be executed” if no heir of the victim objects, according to Islamic Sharia.

Although Maldives Penal Code allows for the death sentence, it has traditionally been commuted to 25 years in prison.

However, The Attorney General last week drafted a bill proposing changes to the law outlining execution of the death sentence in the Maldives.

The Attorney General said that the bill could go through major amendments when it finally gets passed.

The last person to be judicially executed in the Maldives was Hakim Didi, who was executed by firing squad in 1953 after being found guilty of conspiracy to murder using black magic.

Statistics show that from January 2001 to December 2010, a total of 14 people were sentenced to death by Maldivian courts.

However, in all cases, the acting president has commuted these verdicts to life sentences.

Under the new bill proposed last week, the Supreme Court the Supreme Court would have the ultimate say on whether any death sentence given by the country’s judiciary would stand.

Speaking to Minivan News earlier this month, former Foreign Minister and UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Dr Ahmed Shaheed identified the “pathetic state of the [Maldives] judiciary” as one of the key human rights concerns he believed needed to be addressed in the country.

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Parliament’s National Security Committee to summon police commissoner, defence minister

Parliament’s National Security Committee has decided to summon Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz and Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim in order to clarify details of their actions during the controversial transfer of power on February 7.

The committee has decided to summon Nazim and Riyaz on January 15, 2013.

According to local media, both men are to be questioned over in what capacity they had decided to enter the President’s Office and the headquarters of the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) on February 7.

The events of February 7, which led to a dramatic change in government, have been labelled as a “coup d’etat” by the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) – despite a Commonwealth-backed Commission of National Inquiry (CNI) concluding the transfer was constitutional.

The committee is also expected to query why Riyaz and Nazim had assigned themselves the responsibility to push former President Mohamed Nasheed to write his resignation letter that was then sent to Parliamentary Speaker Abdulla Shahid.

The committee is chaired by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Chairperson and MP ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik, who was not responding to calls from Minivan News at time of press.

Moosa told local media that the decision of the committee to summon the heads of the country’s police and military was part of wider work to research the CNI’s report on the controversial transfer of power.

Moosa has alleged that Nazim and Riyaz entered the President’s Office and MNDF HQ without having any authority and against correct protocol.  Their actions, he claimed, therefore required an investigation.

On February 7, the military and police forces joined then opposition-aligned protesters, defying the orders of former President Nasheed and calling for his resignation.

Nasheed later gave a speech claiming that should he remain as head of state any for longer, it could harm the citizens of the nation.  He therefore announced his resignation on the grounds it was the only option he had to avoid bloodshed at the time.

Both Riyaz and Nazim were witnessed at the time following Nasheed to the President’s Office, where he was forced to write a resignation letter to be sent to the Speaker of Parliament.

Earlier this week, former Human Rights Minister Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed alleged certain figures behind protests leading to the controversial transfer of power on February 7 had also planned to assassinate former President Mohamed Nasheed.

The allegations from Saeed, who was recently dismissed as the current government’s Human Rights Minister, were raised in a personal memoir entitled “Silent inquiry: A Personal Memoir on the issue of the Transfer of Powers on the 7th of February 2012”.

Saeed also used the memoirs to accuse president Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik’s government of attempting to manipulate the outcome of the Commonwealth-backed Commission of National Inquiry (CNI) report.  The government has dismissed the accusations as baseless.

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Abandoned baby discovered on Male’ pavement

A baby was discovered abandoned on the side of a road in the Maafannu Ward of Male’ early this morning, police have announced.

According to the Maldives Police Service, the child was discovered at 5:45am today on the pavement in front of a house called Release.

Local media has reported that the child, thought to be female, was discovered by a woman in the house after she had heard its cries. The baby was claimed to have been discovered placed on top of a plastic bag.

Authorities have confirmed that police officers were called to the scene early this morning before taking the child to Indira Gandi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) in the capital.

A police statement has said that the child was found to be in a healthy condition by doctors at IGMH. The Police Family and Child Protection Department is now investigating the case, while no arrests in connection with the incident have been made at present.

There have been a number of recent incidents reported in the media where pregnant women have been forced to take desperate measures such as self-induced abortions, infanticide or abandoning infants.

Earlier this month, a 26-year old male and 20-year old female were reportedly arrested in connection to the discovery of a five month-old foetus buried on a beach on the island of Maradhoo Feydhoo in Seenu Atoll.

Meanwhile in June, police recovered the body of a newborn infant buried in the outdoor shower of a house on Shaviyani Feydhoo island. The baby’s mother was identified as a 15-year old school student.

Over the last two years, three other newborns have been found dead in the country.  Over the same period there has been two separate incidents where newborn children were discovered abandoned but alive.

Two foetuses were reported discovered during this two year period, one hidden in a milk tin and the other at the bottom of Male’s municipal swimming pool. Another fully-developed baby was thrown into a park having apparently been strangled with underwear tied around its neck.

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Housing minister expresses sadness over suspected suicide of Bangladeshi maid

Housing Minister Dr Mohamed Muiz has issued a statement expressing sadness over the death on Saturday (December 22) of a Bangladeshi woman employed as a maid at his Male’ residence.  Police have said they they are presently treating the death as a suspected suicide.

Dr Muiz confirmed that the deceased had been employed at the home he shared with his wife and two children, while also expressing deep sadness over the incident.

Muiz claimed he was first informed of the death while visiting Hulhumale’ with his wife. He added that after hearing of the incident he immediately called Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz.

According to the statement, police officers were already at the scene by the time the housing minister arrived home.

Muiz said that he hoped that further details concerning the case would be released after police had completed their investigation.

The statement also expressed sadness over what some people were allegedly saying about the incident through social media.

Speaking of the deceased, the housing minister stated she had been very good in her duties as well as being very close to his children and a key part of their lives.

“Initial stage”

The Maldives Police Service has said that that investigations were presently at an “initial stage” and it could not therefore disclose any more details on the case, which was presently being treated as a suicide for undisclosed reasons.

Speaking to Minivan News yesterday (December 24), Police Spokesperson Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef confirmed that the body of a 24 year-old female had been found in an apartment on the ninth floor of Chandhanee House in Maafannu Ward.

“I cannot reveal any more until we complete our investigations.  We will not come to any conclusions before that,” he said.
Hours after the body was found on Saturday evening, Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz left a message on the social media site Twitter stating: “Police is investigating the suicide case.”
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Eight arrested over MVR293,100 theft from South Central Utilities Company

Eight men and a minor were arrested last week in connection to the robbery of MVR293,100 (US$19,000) in cash from the South Central Utilities Company, police have said in a statement.

Police have said that the theft occurred on December 18 at 2:10pm on the island of Gan in Laamu Atoll. A bank cheque of MVR13,000 (US$840) was also reported taken in the theft.

According to police, the money was stolen after thieves threatened the company’s staff with sharp weapons as the funds were to be deposited at a local bank branch.

A group of masked men appeared on the road and threatened staff, authorities have claimed.

Police have confirmed that the men arrested on suspicion of having involvement in the robbery were aged 25, 21, 27, 22, 19, and 18.

According to authorities, a 16 year-old minor was also arrested in connection to the case, though police have not presently revealed the identities of any of the suspects.

A police statement said that all the suspects were arrested while at Thundi Ward of Gan in Laamu Atoll.  Investigations into the case are currently being carried out by officers from Gan Police station in Laamu Atoll.

According to local newspaper ‘Haveeru’, Managing Director of South Central Utilities Company Mohamed Nimal confirmed to the paper that six members of its staff were among the eight suspects arrested in connection with the robbery.

The report added that two account officers, a marketing officer, a manager, a technical officer and a electrician all from the company were among those arrested in connection with the case.  The stolen money has not yet been reported found.

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Police treating Bangladeshi woman’s death as suicide as investigations continue

The body of a female Bangladeshi national residing and working in a Male’ residence was found Saturday (December 22) in what police have claimed is a suspected suicide.

Local media reported that the Bangladeshi maid was living in the apartment of Housing Minister Dr Mohamed Muiz.

Speaking to Minivan News today, Police Spokesperson Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef confirmed that the body of a 24 year-old female had been found in an apartment on the ninth floor of Chandhanee House in Maafannu Ward. However, at time of press Haneef was unable to clarify any details of the accommodation where the body had been discovered.

He added that the deceased had been employed as a maid by the landlords of the property, but could not confirm if Housing Minister Muiz resided in or owned accommodation within the building where the body was discovered.

The housing minister was not responding to calls from Minivan News at time of press.

Haneef claimed that investigations were presently at an “initial stage” and police could not therefore disclose any more details on the case, which he said was presently being treated as a suicide for undisclosed reasons.

“I cannot reveal any more until we complete our investigations.  We will not come to any conclusions before that,” he said.

Local media reported that the dead body was discovered at about 5:30pm on Saturday (December 22).

Hours after the body was found Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz left a message on the social media site Twitter stating: “Police is investigating the suicide case.”

According to media reports, the deceased was discovered in an apartment in Chandhanee House in Maafannu Ward where the current housing minister is said to reside.

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AG drafts bill outlining executing death sentence, favours lethal injection

Attorney General Azima Shukoor has drafted a bill outlining how the death sentence should be executed in the Maldives, with lethal injection being identified as the state’s preferred method of capital punishment.

Shukoor today held a press conference to provide local media with information about the bill, which is also to be opened for public comment.

The Attorney General’s Office has said that it has looked to procedures followed by Egypt, Malaysia and the US in carrying out the death sentence, while also obtaining the opinions of religious scholars and lawyers when drafting the bill.

With the bill favouring the use of lethal injection to execute suspected criminals, Shukoor said the proposals would be open for public comment for one month.

Court procedure

In the case of a suspected murder trial, the bill drafted by Shukoor obliges the accused to be represented by a lawyer during their trial.  In any case where the accused refuses to have a lawyer, the bill would require the state to provide legal representation for the respondent.

According to the new bill, when the Criminal Court proceeds with a murder case, it would need to have a bench consisting of three judges, one of whom has to have studied Islamic Sharia.

The bill would also oblige the High Court to have a panel of five judges overhearing murder cases, with the Supreme Court required to have a panel of seven judges.

According to the bill, any death sentence cannot be executed without the final judgement of the Supreme Court.

Photographing and filming of any execution carried out by the state would also be deemed unlawful under the attorney general’s proposals.

Should a suspect who is a minor, pregnant or in a critical medical condition be found guilty of murder, the bill states that the execution shall be delayed.

Shukoor also included an article concerning the authority currently given to the Head of State to commute death sentences to life sentences.  The bill noted that AG’s Office needed further time review the matter as the opinions of different experts were inconsistent on the president’s prerogative to commute sentences.

According to the bill, a suspect found guilty of murder would also be provided with the opportunity to meet his family on the day of execution and say their last words.

In October this year, the government has announced its intention to introduce a bill to the People’s Majlis in order to guide and govern the implementation of the death penalty in the country.

“It is currently a punishment passed by the judiciary and a form of punishment available within the penal system of the Maldives,” said Home Minister Dr Mohamed Jameel Ahmed at the time.

“But for full guidance and matters governing the matter, legislation is required,” he added.

The last person to be judicially executed in the Maldives was Hakim Didi, who was executed by firing squad in 1953 after being found guilty of conspiracy to murder using black magic.

Statistics show that from January 2001 to December 2010, a total of 14 people were sentenced to death by Maldivian courts.

However, in all cases, the acting president has commuted these verdicts to life sentences.

Judicial concerns

Speaking to Minivan News earlier this month, former Foreign Minister and UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Dr Ahmed Shaheed identified the “pathetic state of the [Maldives] judiciary” as one of the key human rights concerns he believed needed to be addressed in the country.

“[The judiciary] is not only corrupt, but also coming under the influence of radical Islam, even to the extent of violating codified laws of the Maldives and clear international obligations,” Dr Shaheed claimed yesterday.

“Disregard for rule of law has also meant that a culture of impunity is deeply entrenched, rendering many of the human rights of the people meaningless.”

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