Local media links proposed foreign expert for CoNI review to MDP-commissioned report

A foreign legal expert sought by parliament’s Government Accountability Committee to help review the Commission of National Inquiry (CoNI) was also behind a report concluding former President Mohamed Nasheed had resigned under duress, local media has reported.

According to local media, a legal team including Associate Professor of Public International Law and Director of Centre for International Justice at University of Copenhagen Anders Henriksen was selected to help oversee the parliamentary review.

The Sun Online news agency today reported that Henriksen, who had been chosen to oversee parliaments CoNI review – delayed late last month over a reported lack of funds – had previously been commissioned by the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) to produce a legal report on February’s controversial transfer of power.

The report was published in July 2012.

“To the extent that a ‘coup d’etat’ can be defined as the ‘illegitimate overthrow of a government’, we must therefore also consider the events as a coup d’etat,” read the analysis co-produced by Henriksen, entitled ‘Arrested Democracy’.

The legal team were one of two parties that applied to oversee the review, according to local media.

Sun Online cited sources within the commission as claiming that Henriksen had been chosen after being identified as the most capable party to conduct the review.

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