The Criminal Court has started the trial of Mariyam Nazaha, 21, of Henveiru Baikandige, less than 24 hours after she allegedly stabbed her ex-husband to death Tuesday afternoon.
State prosecutor Dheebaanaz Fahmy told the court that Nazaha bought a knife around two months ago and hid it in her bedroom to murder Hassan Shahid, 34, of Machangoalhi Edhuruge. She also said Nazaha had stabbed him in the back at her house while he was leaning towards a TV rack.
Shahid died while undergoing treatment for injuries sustained from the alleged attack, and murder charges should be laid against her, the prosecutor said.
When the judge asked whether she understood the charges, Nazaha replied “yes” but said she pleaded not guilty.
The prosecutor noted that the charges were based on Nazaha’s confession in the investigation and added that the police were collecting evidence. She sought a revision of the charges.
The defendant’s lawyer Ahmed Abdulla Afeef said he would respond to the charges after reviewing the documents.
The High Court has ruled in favour of the Criminal Court’s acquittal of a Maldivian who allegedly claimed that there was no God and Prophet Muhammad was not a Messenger.
The Criminal Court judge earlier said the man had made the comments while drunk and therefore could not be convicted. The man’s father had given evidence against him but the High Court ruled the father’s evidence inadmissible because it was motivated by a personal grudge.
A group of Parent Teacher Associations (PTA) have raised concerns over a Dhivehi teacher who was transferred to Hiriya school, after he was found innocent in a court case concerning possession of pornographic images.
Hiriya school is an all-female secondary grade school which officially opened last year.
Director General of the Education Ministry Mohamed Saeed said that the PTAs of many schools in Male’ met with the Ministry yesterday to “express concern”.
”He worked in Dharumavantha School last year as a Dhivehi teacher and was transferred to Hiriya School along with some other teachers,” said Saeed. ”Ever since he was transferred we have received complaints from parents.”
”The teacher was suspended during the case and the court ruled that we should restore his job,” Saeed said.
He emphasised that the teacher had been found innocent, but parents remained concerned about the allegations.
”They said they did not like a man who had allegations of this kind against him to face the students everyday,” he said. ”Because of this issue he has not started working at the school but he remains officially registered as a teacher at Hiriya.”
He said that the PTAs were trying to prevent the teacher from working at the school.
Ahmed Riyaz, President of Hiriya School PTA, told Minivan News that parents were concerned that pornographic pictures of the teacher had been exposed “and everybody knows that”, despite the court ruling he was innocent.
”Courts do not always punish criminals,” claimed Riyaz. ”The court ruled that the pictures were not produced or leaked by [the teacher] – we do not know from the ruling whether it was him in the picture,” he added.
Riyaz said that as the school contained “a mixture of disciplined and undisciplined students”, there might be students “who would tease him by [spreading] the pictures and consequently get punished for it, which might disrupt the education of the student.”
Riyaz claimed Permanent Secretary for the Education Ministry Amand Ali “is the only one who is pressuring the school to have this teacher in Hiriya. She had sent letters to the Hiriya school principal demanding the teacher be allowed to work.”
He further alleged the Dhivehi teacher was transferred because he was “embarrassed to face students at Dharumavantha School,” and “does not have the qualifications to be a secondary grade Dhivehi teacher.”
Two judges with mark sheets in hand made the rounds. Outside, three stations created for live cooking, were used each turn by three chefs from those who signed up for the live cooking demonstration.
Abdul Alim, who moments earlier had been manning the hotplate in the main restaurant, was sautéing a beef steak for his dish ‘sealed beef & roasted vegetable in paprika sauce.’
Meanwhile, a beaming Ali Abdul Rahman turns to a second batch for the live cooking demonstration.
“This is a rare chance for me – I’ve always wanted to participate in a culinary exhibition,” said the chef of 12 years of experience, 11 of which have been spent at Bandos Island Resort and Spa, the scene of the staff cooking competition held this week.
Rahman’s dish was ‘chicken with vegetable pad thai’, chosen as he wanted “a different taste, from a different country.”
Minutes later, Ali was all work, as he set about preparing a pad thai in 45 minutes. But later it would be chef Jayantha Amarasiri would walk away with the gold medal for his ‘beef fantasy’, a delicious prune and cheese-stuffed beef roulade, Cajun marinated beef steak with stir fried meatballs accompanied by mashed potato wrapped in spinach and a vegetable kebab.
Open to all staff at the resort, it was the second such annual exhibition held at Bandos. A range of categories including live cooking, dress the cake, authentic cuisine, vegetable and fruit carving gave the 27 participating chefs the chance to show off their skills.
“We want to motivate our chefs, and improve their culinary skills,” explained Ismail Shareef, Food and Beverage Director of Bandos Island Resort.
With special emphasis on encouraging the chefs to do well at competitions, Bandos recently participated in the Singapore Expo.
“This is also in preparation of Hotel Asia week that will be held later this year”, Ismail said.
The two judges presiding at the event were Chef Tyrell Wasalathathrie, executive chef at Water’s Edge in Colombo, and Chef Ishaq Salih, Executive Chef at the Royal Island Resort.
Name your cake
Inside the orchid room where all the pre-prepared items like the cold desserts and appetisers were laid out, ‘dressing the cake’ was in full swing.
Judge Tyrell wandered by and asked participant Wasantha Kumara – who was putting pink marzipan strips on his cake – what its name was.
“You should have a name for your cakes, by the time you finish them,” he said to the participants.
“It’s ‘pinkie bed’” piped in Abdulla Faiz – and sure enough, his cake was rectangular in size, with a pink drape over it, and even a pink head board. You couldn’t decide if it enticed you to eat it, or sleep in it.
Abdulla, an old hand on the exhibition circuit, had won a bronze in the Singapore Expo this year in a team event.
His work was fast and neat, and it was not much of a surprise when a couple of hours later, the first prize sign was displayed next to ‘pinkie bed’.
Bread presented for judging at the Bandos event
Honing Maldivian talent
The judges took each dish to task after the live cooking demonstration.
“You had a lovely marination going on, but the meat is so over-cooked that that one can’t taste it anymore,” said Judge Ishaq after a quick taste of a beef slice.
Judge Tyrell cut marks for sloppy presentation on some dessert dishes.
“They had enough time to do this, so the visuals should be balanced and neater than this,” he said, pointing to a sauce that was slanting to one side of the dish, next to a strategically-placed slice of cheese cake.
Ali Didi, an 18 year veteran of the field, said tips from the judges were invaluable for improving.
Like others, Ali also has a passion for participating in culinary exhibitions. He has won a silver and bronze in hot cooking on two separate occasions at the Hotel Asia exhibition.
The management of Bandos has plans to give more opportunities for Ali and his colleagues to indulge in this passion.
“Next year we’d like to expand this to holding an inter-resort culinary exhibition,” says Ismail. He says he looks forward to a day when more Maldivians will participate in international culinary exhibitions.
That day seems not far off, suggests Bandos proprietor Mohamed Waheed Deen: “with the right support Maldivians can achieve great heights in the culinary field.”
A group of ‘geomorphologists’ are holding a five day meeting in the Maldives to discuss the impact of climate change on the country’s landmasses, and how the marine ecosystem may be affected.
Newspaper Haveeru reported that the scientists meeting on Paradise Island Resort would devise research policies for the next four years, covering both inhabited and uninhabited islands across the country.
Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam said the research would enable an understanding of how reefs are formed and help determine the impact of climate change on reef structures.
The Maldives is currently suffering from the worst coral bleaching since the 1998 El Nino event, with reports of up to 50 percent bleaching in some areas of North Male’ Atoll as water temperatures rise.
Marine biologists have expressed concern that reefs may be one of the first ecosystems to perish because of climate change.
The parliament yesterday voted to dismiss amendments to the decentralisation bill proposed by the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).
Out of the 69 MPs present, 37 MPs voted against the amendments while 32 voted to continue the bill. One MP abstained.
The controversial bill has seen protests outside parliament and mass-walkouts by MPs. As a result of yesterday’s vote, the DRP’s key sticking point on the issue, the concept of provinces, has been defeated.
DRP MP Ahmed Nihan has previously told Minivan News that while the DRP has never been against decentralisation, as the Constitution states the country should be run by a decentralised government – “it is unconstitutional” to divide the country into seven provinces and not the stipulated 21 regions.
MDP MP Hamid Abdul Gafoor, who presented the bill on behalf of the government, said the party’s objective had been to amend some articles in the decentralisation bill.
”There are some articles in (the recently approved) bill that alienates the islands both socially and economically,” said Gafoor.
Gafoor said MDP proposed the amendments in a bid to make the country economically sustainable.
”When all the powers of the executive are taken by the parliament, the pace of reform slows,” Gafoor said. ”There are many cunning articles included in the decentralisation bill added by the opposition.”
However, DRP MP Dr Abdulla Mausoom said that the government proposed the amendment to the bill to gain more influence by narrowing the power of the people.
”I would not say it was a bill of amendment, it was more a bill that was proposed to reverse the bill previously approved,” said Mausoom. ”The government just want to promote their dictatorship,” he added.
”Local governance is about letting people make their decisions on their own for themselves,” he suggested.
Maldives and India are much better places to live than other South Asian countries, according to the Failed States Index prepared by the Washington DC-based research organisation Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine.
Many countries bordering the Indian Ocean are in the top 37 ‘Alert’ category of Failed States, including Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan, Kenya, Yemen, Burma, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Iran.
Maldives, ranked at 84 in the ‘Warning’ category is considered less ‘failed’ than India, ranked at 79, and Thailand, ranked at 81.
The Failed States Index is based on 12 social, economic and political indicators.
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