Four current judges have applied for the latest opening for the position of Prosecutor General (PG) according to local media.
The names reported include Criminal Court Judge Muhuthaz Muhsin, Drug Court judges Mahaz Ali Zahir and Abdul Sattar Abdul Hameed, as well as Baa Hithaadhoo Magistrate Court Judge Ummu Kulsoom Aboobakuru.
Additional applicants include the former Tourism Minister Mariyam Zulfa and state prosecutor Aishath Fazna Ahmed.
Prominent lawyer Maumoon Hameed has applied for the PG post for the second time, after being rejected by the People’s Majlis four months after he was first put forward by his uncle, President Abdulla Yameen.
The PG’s position has been vacant since former PG Ahmed Muiz resigned from the post prior to a scheduled no-confidence vote last November. The opposition MDP brought the motion after suggesting Muizz had failed to take action against security forces who mutinied on February 7, 2012.
Prior the full house’s failure to approve Hameed’s nomination, the Majlis’ oversight committee had recommended that Hameed not be approved for the position, with committee chair Rozaina Adam telling Minivan News that the nominee had failed to meet the group’s assessment criteria.
The recent resignation of the acting prosecutor general Hussain Shameem has thrown thrown the justice system into confusion, with both state prosecutors and courts unsure of the legal validity of ongoing trials.
Despite calls to reconvene the Majlis, the government has maintained that cases can continue until the 18th Majlis begins its first session later this month.
Law and order appears to have gone a bit schizophrenic in the Maldives in the last few days. First the Maldives Police Service (MPS) arrested its intelligence head, Chief Superintendent (MC) Mohamed Hameed, on charges of ‘endangering internal security’ by disclosing classified information.
Hameed is alleged to have co-operated with the co-authors of ‘The Police and Military Coup’, an MDP-affiliated investigation into the events of 7 February 2012. The report was released in response to the current government’s ‘findings’ into the events, published so prematurely as to be available for public feedback even before investigations began.
The MPS says drafts of the Coup Report, along with commentary, were found in MC Hameed’s gmail account. Nobody has yet answered the question of why the MPS was snooping around in the man’s private email account in the first place. Is it normal for the MPS to spy on their officers?
Then the Criminal Court granted the MPS a five-day extension to Hameed’s detention. He was promptly taken to Dhoonidhoo, the Maldives’ most famous prison island. Hameed’s lawyers lodged an appeal at the High Court on the same day but he was not granted a hearing until the fifth and last day of his detention. Three Justices agreed unanimously that he should be detained for five days, just hours before the five-day detention period expired.
Now, is it just me, or is it a bit difficult to get your head around the question of why the High Court would deign to deliver that judgement at that particular time? Three more hours, and the detention order would no longer be valid anyway. So what was the eleventh hour High Court ruling for?
The High Court’s behaviour becomes all the more inexplicable in light of the fact that shortly afterwards the Criminal Court released Hameed. It saw no grounds to detain him further. All told, the judiciary does not seem to know quite what to do, with itself or with a problem like Hameed.
What is to be done with Hameed? Was he ‘spying for the enemy camp’ as some are alleging? Or is he a heroic whistle-blower? Is he to be jailed for life, or celebrated as a voice that stood up for democracy?
National security violation or whistle-blowing?
The MPS is alleging that by talking to the authors of the Coup Report, Hameed had facilitated an ‘intelligence leak’. Here’s a Tweet by pro-government blogger endorsed by Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz.
The Coup Report does not name any names that are not in the public domain already as having been involved in the events of 7 February; nor does it reveal information a third party had not been privy to previously. What the report seems to have done, for the most part, is gather together scattered evidence already available on various platforms on the Internet and other media into a coherent single narrative.
It appears the authors shared their drafts with Hameed, and he acted as some sort of a proof-reader or a fact-checker. Double-checking what was in the report against what he saw and knew as the Intelligence Chief on 7 February. The MPS says it saw evidence of this in Hameed’s gmail account.
In the absence of an Official Secrets Act or whistle-blower legislation (any lawyer wanting to stop practising the art of silence is welcome to contradict or complement this), what is the most likely legal instrument that would be used for prosecuting Hameed?
The Police Act is a likely resource. It is what the MPS says Hameed violated. The Police Code of Conduct says:
4. Confidentiality
Information obtained during police duty should be confidential and not shared with a third party. Information about police operations and information contained within official police records should not be made public unless their exposure is lawfully ordered.
So, technically, Hameed was acting against the Police Code of Conduct when he liaised with the authors of the coup report.
But, what if he was co-operating in revealing a crime? In such a scenario, Hameed cannot be regarded as guilty of misconduct or any other offence, but becomes a whistle-blower. In the absence of a Maldivian legal definition, let’s go by the dictionary definition:
whis·tle·blow·er or whis·tle-blow·er or whistle blower (hwsl-blr, ws-)
n.
One who reveals wrongdoing within an organisation to the public or to those in positions of authority: ”The Pentagon’s most famous whistleblower is . . . hoping to get another chance to search for government waste” (Washington Post).
whistle-blowing n.
What the Coup Report alleges, and is the opinion shared by tens of thousands of Maldivians, is that the elected government of the Maldives was illegally overthrown on 7 February with the help of police mutiny. If so, providing information on how the police mutiny occurred is not a crime.
Besides, information relating to those events should not be an official secret or classified information. What could there be of more grave public interest than knowing how a government most voted for ended so suddenly and in such questionable circumstances?
Would Hameed not have given the same information to the Commission of National Inquiry if it had bothered to ask him? Would he be not sharing the same information with CoNI now that it’s work has begun at long last? Or is this a way of making sure Hameed is not able to freely speak to CoNI?
If the State were to go after Hameed, there is also Section 29 of the Penal Code:
Whoever attempts to commit or participates in or facilitates the commission of an act against the State shall be punished with imprisonment for life or exile for life or imprisonment or exile for a period between 10 years and 15 years.
An ‘act against the State’ is a term so broad that the act does not necessarily have to amount to an offence to be deemed punishable. The State, meanwhile, is defined as:
the Cabinet existing in accordance with the Constitution, People’s Majlis and collectively all agencies that are entrusted with the administration of those entities. This definition shall also include all property belonging to the State.
So, anyone who does anything about anything to do with the State, which the state deems to be ‘against’ it, can be jailed for life, or banished for life?
Then again, the above definition defines the State as ‘the Cabinet existing in accordance with the Constitution.’ Which means that, if this government is found to be illegitimate, the Cabinet cannot be seen as existing in accordance with the Constitution, and therefore, Hameed could not have committed an ‘act against the State’.
Which brings it all back to the Mother Question upon which all other questions depend: is Waheed’s government legitimate?
Should that question not be answered first before pursuing people who talk about it for espionage and/or defamation? Shouldn’t any information made public for the purposes of answering that question be deemed valuable rather than criminal? Shouldn’t holders of such information be regarded as vital witnesses to be protected rather than traitors to be prosecuted?
Every question that depends on ‘if this government were legitimate’ should take a back-seat to that of how the first democratically elected government ended on 7 February. Especially the question of who is the hero and who the villain.
All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]
The Criminal Court has ordered the release of former head of police intelligence Chief Superintendent Mohamed Hameed from custody, just a few hours after the High Court upheld its decision to keep him detained.
The five-day detention warrant granted by the Criminal Court expired on Tuesday at 2:00pm, and Hameed was brought before the court by the police with a request for further extension.
However contrary to its first decision, the court sanctioned Hameed’s release by concluding that it “does not believe the detention should be extended any further.”
Police have accused the former intelligence chief for “threatening the internal security” or jeopardizing domestic harmony of the country following his contribution to the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s report (Dhivehi) into the controversial transfer of power on February 7.
As Hameed walked out of the court, he was greeted by former President Mohamed Nasheed who welcomed him and shook hands, while eager MDP supporters circling the area hailed Chief Superintendent Hameed as a “national hero”.
High Court’s “ridiculous” ruling
Following the Criminal Court’s previous decision to keep Hameed detained for five days, his family appealed the case in High court, contesting the legitimacy of Criminal Court’s decision to extend his detention.
On Tuesday morning the three judge panel presiding over the case – Judge Abdu Rauf, Judge Shuaib Hussain Zakariyya and Judge Abdul Ghanee – unanimously ruled that they “found no legal grounds” to declare the criminal court’s decision unlawful.
Hameed’s lawyer Ismail Visham argued in court that his client had been subjected to discrimination.
Visham told the court that there were police officers accused of more serious crimes who had not been detained, alleging that in one instance a senior police officer stood accused of attempting to rape a woman and in another incident, influence a judge in a case involving the police officer’s interest.
He further contended that the Criminal Court judge had extended Hameed’s detention period not based on what the police told the judge, but based on the judge’s own view, and that Hameed had therefore lost the right to respond to the accusations.
In response, the state attorney said that Hameed was accused not of a disciplinary matter but a criminal offence, and argued that the Criminal Court judge had declared Hameed a threat to society because police told the judge he might seek to “intimidate witnesses” and “destroy evidence”.
The High Court judges concluded that the defense had not provided enough evidence to substantiate discrimination claims.
The ruling also stated that the constitution does not prohibit the presiding judge from considering reasons in addition to what is provided by the police, in cases concerning the extension of a suspect’s detention.
Following the High Court decision, Hameed’s family today called the ruling “ridiculous” as his detention period was due to expire at 2:00pm today.
“The five day extension will come to an end at 2:00pm today and he will be brought to court again to either have his custody extended or be released. The timing of the High Court verdict on his appeal is ridiculous since his five days are up today anyway,” a family member said.
Witch-hunt against police whistleblowers
In a statement released today, police have said the investigation against Hameed is continuing.
Police allege the Chief Superintendent “distributed information obtained pertinent to his tenure as Head of the Intelligence Department, police matters and internal security, along with [providing] misleading information to certain individuals for reaping benefit out of it to cause divisions between police officers and the community.”
The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) meanwhile held protests last weekend calling for Hameed’s immediate release, claiming that is arrest is “further evidence of the Maldives’ rapid descent into a police state” and that it is a “witch-hunt” against honest officers revealing the criminal offenses committed by rogue police officers on February 7.
“Brave men and women who wish to stand up for the rule of law, for democracy and for human rights are today subjected to constant threats and intimidation. This purge of police officers who the Government considers possible opponents demonstrates President Waheed’s growing paranoia and the fact that his coalition Government are determined to rule by fear,” MDP’s Spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor said in a statement released last week.
“MDP calls on the EU, the US, the UN Human Rights Council and others to urgently enquire into the well-being of these police officers and to hold this illegal government accountable for their growing use of violence and intimidation for political means,” he added.
President’s spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza told Minivan News today that government has no plans of intervening in the case as it is a “police matter”.
“But if police find a case against him” Riza said, “the government will support the any decision to uphold the laws and constitution.”
He further added: “The Police Act governs conducts of police officers and treatment of information individual receive as officers. It is the policy of the government that no civil secret be released.”
The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has issued a statement condemning the arrest of police whistleblowers who cooperated with the production of its report into the controversial transfer of power of February 7.
Police head of intelligence, Chief Superintendent Mohamed Hameed, was arrested on Thursday and detained on Dhoonidhoo.
A police statement alleged that Chief Superintendent Hameed “distributed information obtained pertinent to his tenure as Head of the Intelligence Department, police matters and internal security, along with [providing] misleading information to certain individuals for reaping benefit out of it to drive rift within police officers and the community.”
He was presented to the Criminal Court that afternoon, which extended his detention period by five days. Hameed’s family have appealed the case in the High Court, arguing that his pretrial detention period was extended in violation of the law as Hameed was arrested over a disciplinary issue and not a criminal offence.
Hameed’s lawyer told the court that there were police officers accused of more serious crimes who had not been detained, alleging that in one instance a senior police officer stood accused of attempting to rape a woman and in another incident, influence a judge in a case involving the police officer’s interest.
His lawyer argued that the Criminal Court judge had extended Hameed’s detention period not based on what the police told the judge, but based on the judge’s own view, and that therefore Hameed had lost the right to respond to the accusations.
In response, the prosecution lawyer said that Hameed was accused not of a disciplinary issue but a criminal offence, and contended that the Criminal Court judge had declared Hameed a threat to society because police told the judge he might seek to influence evidence.
He also noted that the matter involving the police officer accused of rape had been sent to the Prosecutor General’s office.
Several other officers were also reported to have been detained last week, however Police Spokesperson Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef said Hameed was the only officer formally arrested.
The MDP held protests over the weekend calling for Hameed’s release, while a Hameed’s family have appealed the case in the High Court, and said the court was due to issue a verdict later on Sunday evening.
In a statement, MDP Spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor said the arrest of the Chief Superintendent was “further evidence of the Maldives’ rapid descent into a police state.”
“Brave men and women who wish to stand up for the rule of law, for democracy and for human rights are today subjected to constant threats and intimidation. This purge of police officers who the Government considers possible opponents demonstrates President Waheed’s growing paranoia and the fact that his coalition Government are determined to rule by fear,” Ghafoor said.
“MDP calls on the EU, the US, the UN Human Rights Council and others to urgently enquire into the well-being of these police officers and to hold this illegal government accountable for their growing use of violence and intimidation for political means,” he added.
President’s Office Spokespersons Masood Imad and Abbas Adil Riza were not responding at time of press.
The Supreme Court has upheld criminal charges against Kaashidhoo MP Ismail Abdul Hameed, reports Haveeru.
The Criminal Court had last year sentenced the Independent MP to one and a half years banishment for corruption. The charges were upheld by the High Court in November.
The charges concerned Hameed’s use of his position as then Director of Male Municipality to buy a barge for the waste management unit, claiming that it had been received when it had not, and paying the remaining 50 percent of the bill to the company concerned.
MPs sentenced to more than one year’s prison or banishment are disqualified from their seats.
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