The court has released a man arrested after he allegedly threatened a police speedboat captain and crew who were conducting a special operation in the island of Fares-maathoda in Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll.
Police alleged that the man told the boat captain that he would set fire to the boat.
According to the police, he was released under condition that he will not communicate with the speedboat captain or the crew.
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(0)Local media has reported that two masked men broke in to an apartment in Henveiru ward where two girls were sleeping, attacking the girls before fleeing with a laptop, mobile phones and other valuables.
Police confirmed with local media. stating that the incident occurred at about 6:30am this morning.
According to local media reports, the two girls were aged 21 and 13 – both being admitted to ADK hospital for treatment.
Details of the injuries were not revealed.
(0)Dislikes(0)President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom has ratified the landmark Right to Information (RTI) Act today.
Advocacy NGO Transparency Maldives has hailed the ratification of the act as “major step forward for good governance and transparency.”
The act (Dhivehi) aims to widen and improve the scope for the citizen’s rights to information in order to increase transparency and accountability.
Within six months of ratification, the president is mandated to appoint a Commissioner of Information to enforce the act, while the government is obliged to appoint an Information Officer at every government office to facilitate access to information.
The Commissioner of Information’s tenure is five years. The act also provides for the establishment of an Office of the Commissioner of Information.
The commissioner has the power enforce a fine on information officers who deliberately refuse access to information. Such a fine may not exceed MVR5000 (US$324).
The commissioner may also fine any individual who destroys requested information, obstructs a public authority or the Information Officer’s from providing access to information. Such a fine may not exceed MVR25,000 (US$ 1621).
The act also provides protection to whistleblowers if the whistleblower publicises information regarding corruption or breach of the law.
Under the act, any public authority is obliged to comply with a request for information within 21 days. However, if the request is relevant to an individual’s liberty or protection of a person’s life, information must be provided within 48 hours.
Any request for information must state the request is being submitted under the RTI Act, details of the requested information, details of the applicant, an address for receipt of requested information, as well as the designated fee.
A request for information can be declined if the Information Officer deems the request to be incomplete, incorrect, or purposeless. However, the Information Officer must notify the applicant before declining the request and grant enough time and assistance to the applicant to revise their application
The state is not required to disclose any information designated confidential by law, or information that could cause legal action against the government for breach of confidence, or which could prevent future communication of such information to the government.
Furthermore, the state is not required to disclose information which could have an adverse impact on the government’s ability to manage or administer the economy or information whose premature disclosure could put a person at an unfair advantage or disadvantage
Neither is the government obliged to reveal information that harms the immunities of the parliament and the courts, information of a closed trial, personal or judicial records which could harm the dignity of a child below 18 years, and information regarding victims of sexual abuse.
(0)Dislikes(0)Police have this morning conducted a special operation, raiding the house of an individual alleged to have been supplying the illegal drugs trade in the Maldives.
The police issued a statement today revealing that the operation was conducted this morning at about 8:20am, with officers raiding the premises of Woodpecker house in Maafannu ward – the home of the alleged drug lord.
According to police 500 grams of suspected illegal drugs were found inside the house.
Police did not reveal the identity of the suspect arrested in the case, but stated that he was 23 years old and involved in a wide network of drug business in the Maldives.
Official statistics reveal drug-related offences reported to police had risen by 84 percent between 2012 and 2013.
On December 5, police searched the premises of Henveiru Fahaageaage after obtaining a search warrant, on suspicion that the house was related to a local drug network operating in Male’.
During the operation police discovered drugs and money inside the house.
Police said that persons believed to be involved in the network were apprehended inside the house during the operation.
According to police, a total of four persons have been arrested in connection with the case including a Pakistani and a Sri Lankan national.
At the time, police said that more places involved in the drug network were being searched.
No further details of the operation were provided in the statement, though it was said that further details will be divulged later.
Yesterday, police told local newspapers that a special operation had been conducted in Male’ to reduce criminal activities conducted by gangs operating inside cinamale’ flat area and its surroundings – discovering four knives and suspected illegal drugs.
The raid was reported to have followed numerous complaint from residents. Police dismantled huts and bird cages inside the premises that had been built without permission from Male’ City Council, on suspicion that these areas may have been used by the gang members to store drugs.
During an interview with Minivan News last week, Home Minister Umar Naseer said that the main targets of his ministry for the next five years would be to curb the drug-related crimes occurring in the country.
Umar Naseer said that due to the increase in drug related offenses the criminal justice system has been overloaded – as had the work of police and customs.
He told Minivan News that the main cause of this overload was the increase in drugs being smuggled and the amount of drug abusers and peddlers.
Naseer said that he intended to give high priority to enhancing the customs services in order to stop illegal drugs and other contraband from being brought in to the country.
Speaking about reducing drug-related crimes, he said that he would focus more on major drug dealers, rather than those further down the criminal hierarchy.
The home minister also pledged to find ways to enforce Maldivian law on the drug lords abroad who are involved in the drug trafficking cases occurring in the Maldives.
According to Naseer, the police intelligence department has been widened by training more intelligence officers
(0)Dislikes(0)The law and order aims of the new administration took centre stage this week as the Home Minister Umar Naseer announced his desire to introduce mandatory government service for young people in order to produce a well-disciplined generation.
The Home Ministry also revealed that fifty prison inmates were to begin work on road construction on the industrial island of Thilafushi as part of efforts to improve reintegration.
With the same end in mind, the police announced its decision to expunge the criminal records of over 1000 young offenders, as the juvenile court revealed that only 6 young people had completed reintegration programmes the previous year.
In an interview with Minivan News, Umar Naseer described the desire to fight illegal drugs that had originally brought him into politics – and now into the cabinet. Naseer expressed his intention to relieve the pressure the drugs problem places on the criminal justice system.
This pressure on the system seemed set to rise this week as the Criminal Court said it would halt all existing cases following the Majlis’s failure to confirm a new prosecutor general. The Supreme Court, however, quickly stepped in to order the resumption of activity.
The government’s plans in the education sector also continued to take shape with the formation of the Council of Higher Education. The scholarship policy of the previous administration took a blow, however, as the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) ordered a review of the vetting processes for tertiary scholarships.
Additionally, the ACC revealed that laptops were given to immigration department staff as bribes to encourage cooperation with the later-terminated border control project.
Returning from his state visit to India, President Abdulla Yameen described bilateral ties as being as strong as they had been under the thirty-year leadership of his half-brother Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The vice president lauded the visit as a panacea to all of the countries’ previous problems.
After Yameen had discussed the amicable settlement of the GMR dispute with the Indian Prime Minister, the Maldives Attorney General this week claimed that the Mohamed Nasheed administration had broken finance laws when guaranteeing loans to the infrastructure giant in 2011.
Nasheed himself rounded on the Yameen cabinet during campaigning for the approaching local council elections, criticising the president’s decision to split ministerial portfolios between different parties.
Earlier in the week, Yameen’s Progressive Coalition had launched its own local election campaign, calling upon voters to enable the government to fulfil its pledges by supporting its local candidates.
Meanwhile, in the first of a series of interviews with MPs ahead of March’s parliamentary poll, Maldivian Democratic Party MP Hamid Abdul Ghafoor told Minivan News that the Nasheed government’s decentralisation policy had been his proudest achievement.
The Elections Commission this week announced that all ten parties with less than 3,000 members would be dissolved.
Elsewhere, a leading member of the Fiqh academy – advisory council – this week publicly criticised the recently passed Sexual Offences Bill for partially criminalising marital rape.
The government’s passing of anti-trafficking legislation was commended by visiting officials from the US State Department, though a government source questioned the decision to move responsibility for implementation to the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
Finally, the bankrupt State Trading Organisation has announced plans to cut operational costs by MVR50 million in 2014 (US$ 3,242,542).
(0)Dislikes(0)The People’s Majlis has agreed to return from recess on Tuesday (January 14) in order to discuss urgent amendments to tax and tourism legislation that will enable the government to raise vital revenue.
Local media has reported that the session will begin at 9am.
President Abdulla Yameen last week called upon the legislature to reassemble in order to facilitate the record MVR17.95 billion budget passed last month – of which MVR3 billion is reliant on new revenue raising measures.
“God willing, when the revenue related bills are passed next week the projects in atolls will speed up”, he said.
The measures include hiking Tourism GST from 8 percent to 12 percent, revising import duties, continuing tourism bed tax for one more year, raising airport departure charge for foreign passengers from US$18 to US$25, leasing 12 islands for resort development, introducing GST for telecommunication services, and obtaining resort lease payments as a lump sum.
Following the Majlis’s failure to extend tourism bed tax before the start of the current recess, Finance Minister Abdulla Jihad told local media that the resulting losses to state revenue would be MVR100 million a month.
(0)Dislikes(0)The Supreme Court has ordered the Criminal Court to restart trials following the court’s decision to suspend all cases in the absence of a prosecutor general (PG).
In a statement today, the Supreme Court said it had told the Criminal Court that the criminal justice system must proceed in order to maintain constitutional rule.
The apex court ordered the Criminal Court to “continue with all ongoing cases without any obstruction, and continue issuing rulings such as that on [pre-trial] detentions as before.”
The Criminal Court had announced yesterday it will halt all ongoing cases as the PG’s position has been vacant for more than 30 days.
Former PG Ahmed Muizz had resigned from his position shortly before the parliament was set to debate a no confidence motion against him.
Speaking to Minivan News, deputy PG Hussein Shameem condemned the Criminal Court for its decision, alleging the court had not discussed the matter with him or the parliament.
Further, people held in pre-trial detention may have to stay in remand centers if cases do not go ahead, Shameem said.
“So what do they do now, it would not be fair to keep them in there until the parliament comes back to work from recess after three months and appoint a new PG,’’ Shameem said.
“That is one of my biggest concerns over this issue, it is a responsibility of the PG office to uphold constitutional rights of the people.’’
There were no laws stating that the deputy PG cannot fulfill the responsibilities of PG in the case of the position being vacant, Shameem added.
He argued that PG’s office’s work must not come to a halt because the parliament had failed to appoint a new PG.
On December 10, President Abdulla Yameen proposed his nephew Maumoon Hameed for the post of Prosecutor General and submitted the name to the parliament for the MPs to approve.
The issue was sent to parliament’s Independent Commissions Committee and the committee decided to seek public opinion on him before sending it to the parliament floor for voting.
However, the parliament is now on recess and will not start work until March.
(0)Dislikes(0)Malaysian security firm Nexbis offered laptops as “bribes” to the Department of Immigration and Emigration’s staff to proceed with a border control project, the Anti- Corruption Commission has said.
In a statement today, the ACC said Nexbis had given 14 inch Lenovo laptops to senior staff at the Department of Immigration on May 10, 2012 in order to “increase Immigration staff’s interest for the project, and to obtain their cooperation so that Nexbiz could proceed with the project.”
The government signed a concession with Nexbis in 2010 to install and operate a border control system. However, in 2011 the ACC ordered the government to terminate the contract claiming that then-Immigration Controller Ilyas Hussain Ibrahim and a Finance Ministry official had abused their authority for undue financial gain in awarding Nexbis the MVR500 million (US$39 million) project.
Nexbiz appealed the commission’s order at the Civil Court. While the Civil Court ruled the ACC did not have the authority to terminate the contract, the High Court later overturned the lower court’s ruling.
In August 2013, the government terminated the agreement citing unspecified “major losses” to the state and replaced the project with a Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES) provided by the US government. The parliament had also unanimously voted for termination of the contract in December 2012.
In September 2013, the Supreme Court upheld the Civil Court’s ruling declaring that the ACC did not have the legal authority to order the termination, noting the order was made after the agreement was signed.
Evidence
According to the ACC, the concession agreement does not list laptops under project deliverables. Although the concession agreement says Nexbis must provide mobile enforcement tools to enforcement officers, laptops are not included in these tools.
The steering committee in charge of the project told the ACC that the laptops were given in order to facilitate communication between the project’s stakeholders, to conduct border control training and to test the system.
However, the Immigration Department’s IT staff told the ACC that every immigration staff member had a desktop computer and that laptops were not necessary for the outlined tasks.
Evidence shows “the project’s steering committee accepted the laptops as a bribe to enable Nexbiz and gave laptops to other Immigration staff as a bribe,” the ACC said.
The commission has recommended the prosecutor general file bribery charges against the steering committee for accepting bribes and offering bribes to other staff.
The steering committee includes former Immigration Controller Ilyas Hussein Ibrahim, and staff members Abdulla Waheed, Ibrahim Ashraf, Saeed Mohamed, and Ali Saeed.
If found guilty, the five may be sentenced to five years in jail, banishment, or house arrest.
(0)Dislikes(0)Dhivehi Qaumee Party’s (DQP) MP Riyaz Rasheed has joined the ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), local media has reported.
Riyaz said he signed to the party in the presence of both President Abdulla Yameen and Vice President Mohamed Jameel Ahmed.
According to Riyaz he joined PPM because he had worked hard to bring the current government to power and that he could best serve the government by joining the party.
Riyaz denied his changing party having any connection to Elections Commission’s decision to dissolve the DQP.
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