Category: News in Brief

Death penalty can be executed, says Chief Justice Faiz

The death penalty can be executed within the existing justice system of the Maldives, Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz has said.

Following the moment of silence observed outside the High Court on Wednesday afternoon in honor of the lawyer Ahmed Najeeb, who was found brutally stabbed to death this week, the Chief Justice told reporters that Maldives legal system is based on  Islamic Sharia which allows the death penalty to be implemented.

Due to increasing criminal related deaths in the country, mainly due to the gang violence that expanded into an alarming level in the country, the public sentiment for implementing capital punishment is growing stronger.

Following Najeeb’s murder – the sixth  homicide recorded this year alone – Home Minister Mohamed Jameel Ahmed and Attorney General Aishath Azima Shakoor, as well as and other prominent lawyers and lawmakers, have publicly endorsed their support for implementing capital punishment to deter increasing crime rates.

According to Chief Justice Faiz, each and every ruling of the court must be enforced for the country to see the effectiveness of the judiciary.

More than 10 people have been sentenced to death in the past decade, out of which none have been executed by the authorities tasked with the role, he observed.

For the past 60 years, the state has been commuting these death sentences to life imprisonment (25 years).

“The Maldives judicial system is constructed in a manner whereby another body is responsible to enforce the punishment once it is decided by the court,” Faiz explained.

“Not only in murder cases, but if all court verdicts on all crimes are properly enforced,  we will see the [positive] outcomes of these verdicts,” the Supreme court judge noted.

A motion related to death penalty  is currently being reviewed by the parliament which, if passed, will make the enforcement of the death penalty mandatory in the event it is upheld by the Supreme Court, halting the current practice of the President commuting such sentences to life imprisonment.

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Auditor general raises concerns over monitoring of state assets

Auditor General Niyaz Ibrahim has hit out at the monitoring procedures of state assets, alleging that sums of leftover funding dating back as much as seventeen years had not been deposited into the government’s revenue account.

Along with Allegations that various offices may also have been using funds illegally, the auditor general said that monitoring of the transfer of assets between various government departments had been an ongoing problem for a “long time”, Haveeru has reported today.  He claimed this uncertainty had resulted in the exact assets of certain government offices not being known upon being transferred or merged with other bodies.

The comments were made to the media following a meeting of Parliament’s Finance Committee concerning issues with a Health Ministry audit report from 2010. The issues were said to relate to the transferring of the administration of hospitals and health centres to specially devised regional corporations under the previous government.

The new government announced back in April that 30 state companies, including these regional health corporations, would be abolished to try and streamline various public services.

Healthcare has been one area in particular singled out by the Waheed administration as needing major policy changes in recent months.

Alongside monitoring physical assets, Niyaz alleged that significant sums of revenue have been incorrectly left within state office accounts rather than a specially sanctioned government revenue account.

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Police Commissioner says postmortems can be performed in Maldives before year’s end

Commissioner of Police Abdulla Riyaz has today announced that postmortems for suspicious deaths will be carried out in the Maldives before the end of the year, reports Haveeru.

Previously, the bodies of those who died in suspicious circumstances have been sent to Sri Lanka for such procedures.

Riyaz said that conducting postmortems does not incur hefty costs and that it was only some additional equipment that was needed in order to begin conducting the procedures in 2012.

Haveeru also quoted a representative of the Islamic Ministry who confirmed the procedure’s compatibility with Islamic law.

“If the death is a suspected murder or if a person has allegedly died from a criminal act, to achieve justice a postmortem can be carried out. That is to check how the victim has sustained their injuries. But consent from the heirs is important when doing so,” Islamic Minister Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem told Haveeru.

The announcement comes days after the brutal killing of prominent lawyer Ahmed Najeeb, the sixth murder in the country this year.

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Bottom of the table Maldives seek first points in final Under-22 qualifier

The Maldives Under-22 football squad will face off against their Kuwaiti counterparts tomorrow in their final qualifying match for next year’s Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-22 Championships.

With tournament qualification in Group C already sealed by Iran and Kuwait, the Maldives, who presently sit at the foot of the same table, face a daunting challenge as they look to seal their first points during the final match of their current campaign.

In the Maldives’ previous game yesterday, the squad were defeated 2-1 by Bahrain after a 61st minute Ahmed Nazim equaliser was cancelled out by a late second-half goal from Hassan Abdqaheri.

The loss came on the back of a 7-0 thrashing by top of the table Iran on Thursday (June 28) and two previous qualifying defeats at the hands of Tajikistan and Qatar.

According to the AFC, the top two teams in each of the seven qualifying groups will qualify for the inaugural Under-22 championship along with the best third-place team. The championship is expected to serve as the official Asian qualifiers for future Olympic tournaments.

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President appoints Deputy Minister of Gender, Family and Human Rights

Mohamed Zahid has been appointed Deputy Minister of Gender, Family and Human Rights, the President’s Office has announced.

Zahid will serve under Dhiyana Saeed, who heads the ministry, which was formed back in May as part of a cabinet shake-up.

President Mohamed Waheed Hassan announced at the time that he was to abolish the previous Ministry of Health and Family in favour of two separate bodies.  These bodies are the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Gender, Family and Human Rights.

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MACL chairman case sent to Civil Court

A case concerning the decision to allow the company developing Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) to deduct an Airport Development Concession (ADC) from government fees has been forwarded to the country’s Civil Court.

The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has alleged that former Maldives Airport Company Ltd (MACL) Chairman ‘Bandhu’ Ibrahim Saleem agreed to deduct the ADC without approval from the company’s board, according to local media.  As all three stakeholders had not signed the changes to the agreement, it could not be considered legally binding, the ACC reportedly claimed in the Haveeru newspaper.

The Airport Development Charge (ADC) was intended to be a US$25 fee charged to outgoing passengers from January this year, as stipulated in the contract signed with GMR in 2010. The anticipated US$25 million the charge would raise was to go towards the cost of renovating INIA’s infrastructure.

The ADC charge was deemed an additional tax last year after the then-opposition Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) filed a case with the Civil Court. The court went on to rule against the charging of the ADC.

GMR subsequently deducted $8.1million, the money it would have received from the ADC,  from its first quarter concessionary payments to the government.

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Maldives’ ambassador supports UN counter-terror strategy

Speaking at the review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in New York, the Maldives’ Ambassador to the United Nations Ahmed Sareer pledged his country’s continued dedication to the ongoing fight against terrorism.

“Government placed the prevention of violence at the forefront of its agenda. Yet, to succeed in this effort, the Government seeks to establish partnerships for sharing intelligence…and coordinate efforts to eradicate terrorism,” said Sareer.

Sareer then went on to detail his efforts to strengthen democratic institutions, to raise awareness of democratic rights and responsibilities, and to promote development.

The Global Counter Terrorism Strategy, being reviewed for the third time, was adopted by the General Assembly in 2006 and represents the first time all member states have agreed on a common strategic approach to tackle terrorism.

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Issue of unratified cabinet members on Majlis agenda

The People’s Majlis will on Monday consider the appointment of the three cabinet members who failed to gain the approval of the Government Accountability Committee last month, local media has reported.

On June 11, Dr Mohamed Muiz, Dr Mariyam Shakeela, and Dr Ahmed Jamsheed failed to gain the approval of the 11 member committee, despite it being dominated by parties from the unity government, although the committee did approve Dhiyana Saeed as the Minister for Gender.

The posts for the new portfolios with the Ministries of Health, Housing, and Environment were left to the full Majlis to deliberate upon after pro-government Jumhoory Party (JP) MP Alhan Fahmy voted with the Maldivian Democratic Party committee members.

Just before the June vote, the JP announced its intention to forward its new President Dr Ibrahim Didi as Health Minister, the post currently held by Jamsheed whilst he awaits his re-appointment to the slightly altered post.

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Government offices revising spending strategies to meet cut plans: Finance Ministry

Finance Minister Abdulla Jihad has claimed “several government offices” unable to cut their budgets by 15 percent ahead of a June 20 deadline were now working on submitting “revisions” for their spending.

Jihad told Minivan News today that the Finance Ministry was presently providing assistance to several departments that had failed to curb spending within deadlines set by the government.  The finance minister did not specify which offices had failed to make the required spending cuts within the time period.

According to Sun Online, government offices and councils were requested to enact a 15 percent cut to their budgets by June 15.   Independent institutions were meanwhile asked to reduce their outgoings by the same amount by June 20.

The cabinet took the decision last month to approve 15 percent spending cuts within government institutions in an attempt to reduce the state budget by Rf2 billion, according to the report.

Official government figures have indicated that inflation rose to an annual rate of 16.53 percent in April.  Earlier in the year, the Finance Committee estimated that the current budget deficit would reach 27 percent of GDP, or  Rf9.1 billion (US$590 million).

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