Police have arrested three persons with 63 packets of illegal drugs and four bullet-sized packets of illegal drugs on Fuvamulah.
Police said the men were arrested last Thursday night.
According to police, the suspects were packing the drugs in their house when officers arrived, and entered the toilet and try and hide the drugs.
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(0)A Qatar flight scheduled to fly to Doha on Sunday night was refused permission to depart Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) following the airline’s ongoing refusal to pay increased ground handling charges.
The move came after the airline’s CEO Akbar Al Baker last week was recently reported as stating that Qatar would re-consider flying to the Maldives if airport operator GMR insisted on a 51 percent increase in ground handling charges.
“If we or any other major player withdraws services because of these unwarranted and draconian measures, it will be the people of the Maldives who will lose out, affecting their livelihoods as they rely heavily on the tourism industry,” Al Baker said.
Minivan News reported yesterday that GMR had requested that Qatar pay cash for the day’s flights.
INIA CEO Andrew Harrison told Minivan News today that the flight had been refused permission to depart due to the airline’s lack of payment of the revised charges.
The flight was delayed an hour and 20 minutes, he said, before GMR allowed it to depart “on compassionate grounds. There were women and children on board and passengers with international connections to make, who were being inconvenienced through no fault of their own,” he said.
Minivan News understands that GMR is currently in talks with several airlines regarding back payment of the increased charges. The company has said it will release a formal statement later in the week.
“MACL (Maldives Airport Company Limited) announced the revised charges in February 2010, after 14 years without increases,” Harrison said. “The charges are still below those for the same aircraft sizes at other airports in the region.”
MACL’s revised charges came into effect on 1 November 2010, Harrison explained. “They had an obligation to give six months notice, and they gave nine. We took over on 25 November. We included [the revised charges] as part of our business and revenue.”
Qatar’s Country Manager for the Maldives Sayed Mohammad Tariq said the matter was being dealt with at head office level by the airline’s senior management.
“Qatar’s CEO made his position very clear. We have nothing to say at station level,” he told Minivan News.
Morning and evening flights on Monday were cancelled. However Tariq said no decision had been made to cancel future flights which remained in the airline’s booking system.
The airline was today taking care of passengers affected by the payment dispute, he said. “We are taking care of all passengers and putting them on other flights.”
(0)Dislikes(0)A Maldivian couple have been detained in India over a visa issue for more than three months, reports Haveeru.
The paper reported the couple’s son as telling the paper that his parents had asked another Maldivian woman to renew their visa when it was about to expire, and that they had stayed on relying on the documents that were handed to them by the woman. The documents were subsequently identified by Indian police as counterfeit.
The Foreign Ministry told the paper that officials at the Maldivian Embassy had visited the couple. Their case was currently in court and that they could not return to the Maldives until the court concluded the case, the Ministry said.
(0)Dislikes(0)Police last night used tear gas to disperse a crowd of protesters who had gathered in an ongoing series of protests, held following the arrest of Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed by the military.
Opposition protesters gathered near the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) office opposite the artificial beach, while Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) supporters also gathered in the area.
The two groups shouting at each other over loudspeakers until midnight, accusing the other side of corruption along with other allegations.
At one point, according to local newspapers Haveeru and Sun, MDP protesters accused President of the Adhaalath Party Sheikh Imran Abdulla of sleeping with his sister-in-law, to which the Sheikh responded over his loudspeaker, “swearing by God” that the allegation was false and saying he would file for defamation.
Police attempted to enter the DRP head office several times, but were blocked by officials inside who denied then entrance without a court warrant.
After midnight police warned both groups of protesters to leave the area. After warning both sides several times, police threw tear gas canisters into the crowd, which dispersed.
Before the protest was dispersed, opposition protesters announced that they would gather again tonight.
A police spokesperson told Minivan News that police had asked both groups to leave the area.
”We warned them at 12:00am and then dispersed the protest,” he said. “We have not received any information that any person was injured except for a woman who suffered minor injuries.”
He said seven persons who disobeyed police orders were arrested, and one was released.
”The other six persons are still in police custody,” he added.
(0)Dislikes(0)The ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has proposed a bill to amend the Courts Act (22/2010) which would reduce the number of judges on both the benches of the Supreme Court and High Court if passed.
In a press released issued by the party’s parliamentary group, amendments have been proposed to article 5 and article 27 of the Courts Act which dictates the number of judges on the benches.
The first amendment proposes changing clause (a) of the article 5 of the Courts Act, reducing the Supreme Court bench to five judges inclusive of the chief justice. The amendment would also dissolve clause (a) of the article 16 in Judges Act (Act 13/2010).
The second amendment proposed reducing the High Court bench to seven judges, inclusive of a chief judge.
The current Supreme Court has a bench of seven judges, including the chief justice, while the High Court consists of nine judges including the chief judge of the High Court.
The bill also states that once it is passed and ratified, the judges for the Supreme Court and the High Court should be reappointed within 30 days.
MDP Spokesperson and MP Imthiyaz Fahmy stated that the bill was proposed because the ruling party believes that the Supreme Court and the High Court have been inefficient in finishing cases, and that it is not feasible to have a large bench of judges if the efficiency of the courts were below expected standards.
“Only 31 percent of the cases submitted to the Supreme Court in 2008 were actually finished while the remaining 69 percent remained pending. In other countries with similarly-sized benches the same number of judges finish more than 90 cases annually,” Fahmy said.
Fahmy also said that the MDP is not seeking to remove specific judges from the bench,and that instead the intention was purely to reform the judiciary and ensure the people had free and fair access to justice.
The MDP was confident that the bill would pass despite neither the opposition or the ruling party having an absolute majority, Fahmy said.
Prominent lawyer Ali Hussain raised doubts about the sincerity of the MDP parliamentary group’s decision considering the timing of the proposal. Hussain claimed the government had a majority in the JSC and the parliament for six months [referring to the 16th parliament which ended its term in February 2009 after the general elections] and had done nothing to reform the judiciary.
Independent MP for Kulhudhuhfushi, Mohamed Nasheed, was reported saying in the local media that the bill to amend the Act was an attempt by the government and the ruling MDP to intimidate the current sitting judges of courts of the Maldives. Fahmy denied the claims.
The MDP recently launched a campaign to reform the judiciary. The government subsequently took Chief Judge of the Criminal Court Abdulla Mohamed into military custody maintaining that Judge Abdulla posed a threat to the wellbeing of the society.
Tempers have flared across the capital Male’ with an ongoing series of opposition-led protests calling for the government to uphold the constitution and release the chief judge.
(0)Dislikes(0)Few of the million or so tourists who visit the Maldives each year would catch even a whiff of the troubled politics or growing militant threat roiling the islands of one of the world’s most renowned get-away-from-it-all destinations, writes Bryson Hull for Reuters.
“Taking a page from the book of Gayoom, Nasheed ordered [Chief Judge Abdulla] Mohamed’s arrest and defied a Supreme Court release order, sparking more than three weeks of sometimes-violent protests by opposition parties that scented a chance for their own Arab Spring in the Indian Ocean.
The reason, Nasheed says, is because the judge, like the other 200-odd criminal court judges, was illegally sworn in for a life term and has blocked every attempt to bring multi-million-dollar corruption, rights abuse and criminal cases against Gayoom’s allies and relatives.
“Gayoom is running the judiciary,” Nasheed said. “When he lost the presidency, he was clever enough to carve out a territory and hide there, or get protected there. And none of the cases are moving.”
So to make good on his electoral promise to enact a new constitution and establish an independent judiciary, Nasheed says he has acted outside of it.
“You have to push everyone to the brink and tell them ‘You do this or we all fall’,” Nasheed told Reuters in an interview at the presidential bungalow in Male, the capital island.
“I think it would be so wrong of me not to tackle this simply because I might fall or simply because people may raise eyebrows.”
And it has done just that, drawing private diplomatic rebukes from Western nations which backed his ascendancy to lead the archipelago of 1,200 islands out of 30 years of Gayoom’s rule, which was widely criticised as dictatorial.
“It’s just indefensible. It’s almost like Nelson Mandela coming out and locking up all the white people,” a businessman based in Male who works with a government-linked company told Reuters, asking not to be identified.
But while the political fray goes on with all eyes on the 2013 presidential election, Maldivian intelligence officers and Western officials say hardline Salafist and Wahabist groups are gaining political ground in the more distant atolls and making a beachhead in Male.
The capital island is home to almost 200,000 of the Maldives’ 330,000 people, all Sunni Muslims. It is also home to the majority of the estimated 30,000 people on the islands who are addicted to heroin, according to UN estimates.
“It’s potentially a tropical Afghanistan. The same forces that gave rise to the Taliban are there – the drugs, the corruption and the behavior of the political class,” a Colombo-based Western ambassador who is responsible for the Maldives told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“The Salafists are taking over atoll after atoll. They work on the ground and it is insidious. Nero is definitely fiddling while Rome burns.”‘
(0)Dislikes(0)There is no doubt that the judiciary in the Maldives is in a mess with many unqualified and incompetent people having made it into the judiciary in the void created during the transition period, writes Dr S. Chandrasekharan for the Eurasia Review.
“The ICJ report of July 2010 pointed out the legacy of an authoritarian past in which the President was the supreme judicial architect that has tested the transition.
“Another factor which inhibited proper selection was that the Judicial Service Commission failed to fulfill the constitutional mandate of properly vetting and reappointing the judges. Even the composition of the commission was questionable. Imagine Gasim Ibrahim being a member – he is a politician and leader of one of the active political parties. He has extensive business interests and there will be an unavoidable clash of interests.
“In the year 2005, the then Attorney General and now a leader of the DQP has himself reported against the judge and the allegations included misogyny, sexual deviance, throwing out an assault case despite the confession of the accused. The Judicial Commission took its own time to enquire into the allegations and meanwhile the judge approached the civil court and stopped the enquiry!
“The judge would have got away with all this but what triggered the anger of the government was that he issued orders for immediate release of two persons from custody – Dr Jameel, the Vice President of DQP and Sandhaanu Didi for asserting in a private broadcasting station that the government was working with the Jews and Christian priests and encouraging vice. Didi went further and made personal attacks against President saying that the President was a madman and a Christian!
“Confronted by the police, the two were not able to substantiate the allegations and were therefore taken into custody under 125 of penal code which said that a ‘person can be punished for making a fabricated statement or repeats a statement whose basis cannot be provided.’
“The Chief Judge of the Criminal Court Abdulla Mohamed ordered the immediate release of the accused and the Police with the help of the MNDF in turn arrested the judge of the criminal court.
Police Sources say that the Judge was arrested for unethical conduct in obstructing the Police in exercising their responsibilities to preserve law and order in the society.
“The High Court ordered the release of the judge stating that the arrest was illegal. The Chief Justice Ahmad Faiz and the Prosecutor General also issued orders for the immediate release of the judge.
“The JSC (Judicial Service Commission) also issued a press note that it is not in the jurisdiction of the armed forces or the Police to take action against the judge.
“The Vice President has in his blog has said that the arrest is against article 319 of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Further it is against the international covenant of civil and political rights and international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance. He suggested that the judge should be released and then make the JSC fulfill its responsibilities.
“The Secretary General of SAARC and a former attorney General Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed, the youngest and the first female Secretary General, condemned the arrest in a television programme and said that it is a “violation of individual human rights, a violation of independence of the judiciary and a violation of the constitution.” She has put in her resignation papers after the broadcast.
“A team of lawyers filed a case against MNDF in the High Court over the illegal arrest of the judge. A case has also been filed in the International Court of Justice over the arrest.
“President Nasheed appears to be unrelenting and has justified the arrest. He has separately approached the UN for help in cleaning up the judiciary- immediate issues and the long term issues that includes the failure of the judicial accountability mechanism in the constitution.
“It looks that President Nasheed has over reached himself in firstly arresting and in refusing to release the judge when the overwhelming public opinion is against taking such a drastic action. He should have taken this strong stand last year during the transition when some of the judges appointed by the previous regime were found not having “high moral character, educational qualifications or competence.”
One of the charges against the judge now arrested was that in 2005 he was alleged to have requested the under age victim of molestation to re enact her abuse in court. The charge could not be enquired into by the judicial service commission as the judge got a stay order from the civil court.
“By this one act of arrest, President Nasheed is likely to antagonise all his admirers and sympathisers. Earlier it is undone, better it would be for all concerned.”
(0)Dislikes(0)Amana Takaful has announced that its initial public offering (IPO) of 800,000 shares will open for trading on the February, along with a further 11,441,187 bonus shares.
The Sri Lanka-based sharia-compliant insurance company had previously announced an IPO of 800,000 shares in September last year.
General Manager of Amana Takaful, Hareez Sulaiman, said in a statement that the total number of shares issued were 20,241,987.
“The Maldives economy, no doubt, has huge potential for growth, but needs foreign and local investments,” Sulaiman said.
“An active stock market is what will attract this investment. Therefore, we expect not only our valued shareholders but also other individuals and corporates to actively take part in the stock market.”
The company had previously shared its hopes of generating Rf16 million (US$1.4 million) in proceeds through the IPO, by selling shares at a low issue price of Rf20 (bundled in packages of 25).
(0)Dislikes(0)The Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) has not confirmed whether a decision was made last night to withdraw MNDF officers providing security to Supreme Court and High Courts, following allegations in the local media today.
MNDF Spokesperson Major Abdul Raheem told Minivan News that he had seen the media reports but was unable to confirm whether the claims were true.
‘’I have seen the media reports and tried to clarify the details of what happened,’’ Major Abdul Raheem said. ‘’But I have been unable to make sure it is true or incorrect.’’
State Defence Minister Muiz Adnan said he had no any information about the matter.
Judicial Services Commission (JSC) Chair and Supreme Court Judge Adam Mohamed refused to comment on the issue.
Local media reported that at 7:00pm last night MNDF officers watching over the outside gates of the Supreme Court left with the key to the gate.
Newspaper Haveeru reported that the keys were handed back to the Supreme Court last night and informed that they were taken by mistake.
This afternoon, the paper quoted an official of the JSC saying that MNDF officers had been watching the Supreme Court today.
“Around 10 people gathered outside the court and started shaking the east side gate. They left when the lock was broken,” the official told Haveeru.
Five hours after the MNDF officers left the court a group gathered outside the court and broke the lock of the court’s east gate, the paper reported.
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