The Supreme Court of the Maldives has issued a press release disputing the corruption allegations made against former Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, who is currently a member of the Supreme Court bench, and a second Supreme Court Judge Ali Hameed.
”The stories published are all untrue,” the statement said. ”We advise not to conduct any attempts that will harm the sanctity of the courts and its judges and to keep all actions within the constitution of the Maldives.”
The statement said that repairing Supreme Court’s cars and vehicles was not within the job description of the judges and judges had no role to play in repairing the Supreme Court’s vehicles, after allegations that Hameed had twice repaired his car with Supreme Court funds.
No judge at the Supreme Court had ever received phone allowances or any other allowance, and no judge at the Supreme Court receives any allowance not mentioned in the constitution or laws, said the Supreme Court in its statement.
Local radio station SunFM yesterday reported that the two judges were accused of corruption and a case was filed in the ACC, alleging that the two judges had paid their personal telephone bills from Supreme Court funds.
SunFM quoted a senior staff member at the judiciary as saying that the phone bills of each of the judge totaled over Rf 17,000 (US$1323) each month.
”Last month judge Abdulla Saeed’s spent Rf 25,000 (US$1945) of the Supreme Court’s money as phone allowance,” SunFM quoted the source as saying.
SunFM also reported that judge Ali Hameed’s car was damaged twice in accidents and was also repaired using Supreme Court money.
The source in the judiciary also alleged that Ali Hameed had threatened a staff member at the Finance Department of the Supreme Court saying that he would be sacked if the did not hand over the money to fix the car after the second accident.
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