Tag: weapons smuggling

‘Drug trafficker’ acquitted on lapses highlighted in former president’s trial

Citing severe procedural irregularities, the Supreme Court on Thursday acquitted a man sentenced to life in prison over drug trafficking charges.

The unprecedented ruling deals with similar lapses noted by former president Mohamed Nasheed and former defense minister Mohamed Nazim, who were sentenced to jail on terrorism and weapons smuggling charges, respectively.

In acquitting Abdulla Unais, the Supreme Court said he was not given access to a lawyer or the opportunity to call defense witnesses.

Unais was arrested in Addu City in May 2012. Police officers found more than 46 grams of heroin in envelopes on the ground at the time of his arrest and in his trouser pockets.

Unais had denied charges and claims he was framed by police officers.

The Supreme Court said the lower courts should have investigated Unais’ claims of a police set-up by verifying if the accused police officer had left any fingerprints on the envelope. The ruling went onto question the validity of the police officer’s testimony.

The criminal court’s sentencing of Unais without providing access to legal counsel contravenes the constitution, which states that the government must set lawyers for individuals accused in serious crimes, the ruling said.

Unais, who had remained in police custody throughout the duration of his trial, had repeatedly told the criminal court he was unable to hire a lawyer, the Supreme Court said.

Nasheed, in a petition to the UN working group on arbitrary detention, noted that he was denied legal counsel at a first hearing. Then, when his lawyers recused themselves in protest over the criminal court’s refusal to provide sufficient time to prepare defense, judges proceeded with hearings, despite Nasheed’s repeated request to hire new lawyers.

The government maintains due process was followed. A ruling is expected in September or October.

Nasheed’s 19-day trial was criticized by foreign governments and UN rights experts. The UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the EU parliament and high profile US senators have called for his immediate release.

Nazim, meanwhile, contends rogue police officers had framed him by planting weapons during a midnight raid. The criminal court, however, did not allow the former defense minister to call witnesses to prove his case.

Nazim’s lawyers also contend anonymized statements provided by the police officers involved in the raid are inadmissible in court.

Appeal hearings in Nazim’s case have been stalled after the Supreme Court transferred two of the five judges on the panel to a newly created branch in Addu City.

Nasheed and Nazim’s imprisonment triggered a political crisis with daily protests and historic antigovernment marches. The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party is now negotiating with the government for the pair’s release. Nasheed is currently under house arrest.

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HRCM questions police conduct in raid of ex-defence minister’s apartment

The failure to videotape a midnight raid on the apartment of then-defence minister Mohamed Nazim on January 18 “raises questions about the actions of police officers,” the human rights watchdog has said.

The retired colonel was found guilty of weapons smuggling and sentenced to 11 years in prison in March after police discovered a pistol and bullets in his bedside drawer. Nazim maintains that he was framed by rogue Specialist Operations (SO) officers acting on the orders of tourism minister Ahmed Adeeb.

Following an inquiry to determine whether Nazim’s human rights were violated, the Human Rights Commission of Maldives (HRCM) found that the police acted in accordance with the law, but questioned the decision not to seek assistance from the military despite suspecting that Nazim possessed dangerous weapons and an improvised explosive device.

“The investigation noted matters that raise questions about the actions of police officers in searching G. Enif due to the carelessness of the police officers and because the search was not videotaped,” reads a 35-page confidential HRCM investigation report obtained by Minivan News.

However, the report concluded that police acted lawfully in arresting the former defence minister on February 10 and that his human rights were not violated under police custody.

In four recommendations to the Maldives Police Service, the commission advised making it mandatory to take video footage of police operations, involving officers of both genders in raids, and respecting human rights while searching private residences.

The police told the HRCM investigators that Nazim’s apartment was not raided based on intelligence information.

The decision was made by senior officers based on information from a credible source, according to statements from anonymised police officers.

Some police officers involved in the operation said they did not know who ordered the raid and some were unaware of the target when they prepared for the operation.

A SWAT team officer said he only knew it was Nazim’s apartment upon seeing the defence minister inside.

The police said they also found a pen drive with documents detailing a plot to assassinate President Abdulla Yameen.

The raid

The police SWAT team raided Nazim’s eighth floor apartment around 3:30am and broke down the doors of the house, the apartment, and family rooms.

The family told HRCM investigators that SO officers used obscene language and forced Nazim and his wife to kneel down while they searched the master bedroom for about 15 minutes.

A second search team then went into the room and called Nazim and his wife over.

An investigation officer showed Nazim the search warrant about 25 minutes after the SO officers broke into the apartment, the family said.

The family alleged that SO officers also broke down the door of Nazim’s daughter’s room and that her finger was injured when she was dragged out to the living room.

The family said the raid was traumatising and that Nazim’s daughter still faced difficulty sleeping.

Family members also stressed that police had not searched the rest of the apartment after finding a black bag from Nazim’s room. The SO officers took out the bag’s contents and Nazim denied that it was his.

The police did not take forensic samples, the family noted.

Nazim has meanwhile appealed his conviction at the High Court, which began hearings late last month. The appeal has been stalled after the Supreme Court transferred two judges in the five-member panel to an appellate branch in the south.

The ex-defence minister’s lawyers have highlighted several lapses in due process, including the criminal court’s refusal to call defence witnesses, discrepancies in testimony by anonymous police officers, and the police’s alleged failure to follow the law and standard procedures in the midnight raid.

Nazim maintains that the weapons were planted on the orders of tourism minister Ahmed Adeeb after the pair fell-out over Adeeb’s alleged use of SWAT officers to commit criminal activities. Adeeb has denied the claims.

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Ex-defence minister’s appeal stalled

The High Court today cancelled the third hearing into an appeal filed by former defence minister Mohamed Nazim following the Supreme Court’s transfer of two judges on the panel to a newly created appellate court in the south.

Nazim is serving an 11-year jail term on weapons smuggling charges. The retired colonel maintains he was framed by rogue police officers.

Appeal hearings began on Sunday and were to continue daily and conclude this week.

The Supreme Court yesterday transferred Judges Abbas Shareef and Shuaib Hassan Zakariyya to the southern branch of the High Court. The two are among the five-judge panel overseeing Nazim’s appeal.

A family member said they have not been informed when the next hearing is to take place.

There are now a number of issues that could stall Nazim’s appeal. A panel of at least three judges must preside over the case.

Two criminal court judges who had sentenced Nazim were recently appointed to vacant seats on the nine-member High Court bench. The High Court has previously said the pair – Judges Abdulla Didi and Sujau Usman – will not oversee the appeal.

Of the seven judges left, judge Azmiralda Zahir was also transferred along with Shareef and Zakariyya to the southern branch.

This leaves only four judges to oversee Nazim’s appeal.

The High Court could proceed with a three-member panel. But the Supreme Court could at any time transfer any three of the remaining six High Court judges in Malé to a second regional branch in the north.

If any of the two former criminal court judges sit on the Malé bench, the appeal cannot proceed.

The division of the High Court into three regional branches with three judges each was required through amendments to the Judicature Act in December last year.

The regional branches can only hear appeals of magistrate court verdicts, while only the main branch in Malé can hear appeals of challenges to laws and regulations.

Critics have previously questioned the need to divide the high court bench, noting magistrate courts typically only hold trials on petty crimes. The bulk of complicated civil and criminal matters are heard at the Malé’s superior courts.

The opposition has described the judges’ transfer to the regional branches as a demotion, and said it will allow the Supreme Court to transfer judges it is not happy with to the regional branches.

The apex court’s decision to divide the High Court comes at a much later date than that required by law. The amendments said the Supreme Court must establish the regional branches within 90 days of the ratification of the law.

On Sunday, Nazim highlighted several lapses in due process at the criminal court, including judge’s failure to call defence witnesses, discrepancies in testimony by anonymous police officers and police failure to follow standard procedures in the midnight raid on his apartment.

State prosecutors on Monday said police are authorised to change their standard operating procedures at any time.

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State defends lapses in raid on ex-defence minister’s home

State prosecutors have defended the police’s failure to videotape a raid in which a pistol and three bullets were discovered in the ex-defence minister Mohamed Nazim’s apartment.

The retired colonel was sentenced to 11 years in jail on weapons smuggling charges. He maintains he was framed by rogue police officers, and has taken up the police’s failure to follow standard operating procedures as a key argument in an ongoing appeal at the High Court.

But public prosecutor Adam Arif today said that the police can “change the standard operating procedure whenever they want to.”

“The criminal court’s judgment that said police are not required to follow the standard operation procedure is lawful. These procedures set up by the police are subject to change at any time. These procedures are always changing,” he said.

Police officers, who had provided anonymous testimony at the criminal court, admitted they did not videotape the raid as required, and provided conflicting testimony on how and when mandatory photographs were taken.

Nazim also claims officers did not provide him with a copy of the search warrant when SWAT officers first entered his house.

His lawyers have alleged several lapses in due process, including the criminal court’s refusal to call defence witnesses and failure to allow Nazim to mount a proper defense.

The ex-defence minister maintains that the weapons were planted on the orders of tourism minister Ahmed Adeeb after the pair fell-out over Adeeb’s alleged use of SWAT officers to commit criminal activities. Adeeb has denied the claims.

Nazim’s lawyers told the High Court yesterday that the criminal court had blocked him from mounting a proper defense by refusing to call defence witnesses and blocking defence lawyers from cross-examining state witnesses.

They have also alleged state prosecutors coached witnesses, and said discrepancies in police testimony indicate that police officers had lied under oath.

Responding to Nazim’s arguments today, Arif denied irregularities including that of witness coaching, and insisted that Nazim was allowed to defend himself.

“Interviewing witnesses” before court appearances are done in many democratic countries, Arif said.

He admitted to discrepancies in witness statements, but said the contradictions were not serious enough to undermine the whole case.

“The state provided enough evidence which proved the case at the lower court. We proved that weapons were found at his house. If Nazim cannot prove how the weapons came to be there then it can either be that he smuggled the weapons or made the weapons,” Arif said.

At the criminal court, Nazim had attempted to argue that the 9mm Browning pistol had belonged to a Special Protection Group Corporal, who  had lost it at Shangri-La resort in 2014. When the military promptly dismissed the claim, the criminal court refused to call defence witnesses.

The court also refused to call witnesses to testify to the fall-out between Nazim and Adeeb, and to prove the police’s SWAT team had committed criminal offences before.

Arif today said the criminal court is authorized to bar some witnesses if they appear to be irrelevant, and said the judges had blocked Nazim’s lawyers from cross-examining state witnesses because their questions had “strayed from the subject.”

Along with the weapons, police said they had discovered a pen drive containing documents detailing a plot to assassinate President Abdulla Yameen. Nazim’s lawyers have also questioned the validity of the documents.

Judges Abdul Ganee, Abdulla Hameed, Shuaib Hussain Zakariyya, Abbas Shareef and Abdul Rauf Ibrahim are overseeing Nazim’s appeal.

Two judges who oversaw Nazim’s trial, Abdulla Didi and Sujau Usman, were promoted to the High Court on June 8.

Nazim’s trial also coincided with a terrorism trial against ex-president Mohamed Nasheed. The opposition leader was sentenced to 13 years in jail on March 13.

He was tried by the same three judges who oversaw Nazim’s trial.

The pair’s imprisonment has triggered a political crisis with daily protests from February through May, two mass demonstrations and hundreds of arrests.

Foreign governments, international organizations including the UN, and civil society groups have criticised the trials for apparent lack of due process. President Yameen, however, insists he has no constitutional authority to release the pair and says they must exhaust all appeal processes.

Nasheed’s lawyers were blocked from filing an appeal when the criminal court failed to issue the required case documents within a shortened 10-day appeal period.

The former president was temporarily transferred to house arrest yesterday.

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Ex-defence minister appeals weapons smuggling sentence

Former defence minister Mohamed Nazim has appealed an 11-year jail term on weapons smuggling at the high court today.

Nazim’s defence team said the criminal court had failed to provide a required report into court proceedings by the 2pm appeal deadline today.

The US and UK have criticised Nazim’s trial for apparent lack of due process, and the opposition has been protesting daily for his release.

Nazim’s lawyers said the criminal court’s failure to provide the case report “hampered” his right to appeal and that the new 10-day appeal deadline was too short to file an appeal. The Supreme Court had shortened the 90 day appeal period to 10 days in January.

The retired colonel is currently in Singapore seeking emergency medical treatment unavailable in the Maldives. He left Malé on Friday with his wife.

“Nazim said to let the public know he will not flee and will return as soon as his treatment is completed,” a family member said.

Although inmates are usually allotted three months for overseas treatment, Nazim was only given 45 days. The home ministry authorised him to travel to Singapore only, despite the family saying Singapore was too expensive for medical care.

The inmate’s families are usually required to bear expenses for overseas medical treatment.

After a midnight police raid in January, officers said they had confiscated a pistol, bullets and a pen drive containing information that Nazim was plotting a coup d’etat and planning to harm the president, police commissioner and tourism minister. Nazim says the items were planted.

He requested permission to travel overseas three weeks ago after his doctor advised him to undergo some tests unavailable in the Maldives.

The family has declined to reveal details of Nazim’s medical condition, but said it needs to be monitored and treated.

No prison guards will travel with him, but the correctional service and a guardian from the family will come to an agreement under which the guardian will be responsible for the inmate.

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Ex-Defence Minister Nazim found guilty of smuggling weapons, sentenced to 11 years in jail

The Criminal Court has found former Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim guilty of smuggling dangerous weapons and sentenced him to 11 years in jail.

At a late night hearing on Thursday, the three-judge panel said Nazim had not been able to demonstrate how he had come to possess a pistol and three bullets found in his apartment during a police raid on January 18.

The weapons did not belong to the state armoury and therefore must have been smuggled into the country, the judges said. Further, since the police had discovered the weapons at Nazim’s home in a raid conducted according to the law, they must be considered to belong to the former defence minister, judges concluded.

Nazim’s defence team have maintained the pistol and three bullets were planted by rogue officers on the orders of Tourism Minister Ahmed Adeeb, after the pair fell out over Adeeb’s alleged use of police SWAT team for criminal activities.

The Maldives Police Services and the Tourism Minister have denied the accusations as baseless and untrue.

Nazim, as he was escorted out of the courtroom under a police guard tonight, told his distraught family, “We will still gain justice.”

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, defence lawyer Maumoon Hameed said the three judges had not considered the defence’s arguments and said he would lodge an appeal at the High Court as soon as possible.

The Criminal Court last week refused to call all but two of the 37 defence witnesses, claiming some were not relevant while others did not appear to negate the prosecution’s claims.

Following the weapons discovery, Nazim was dismissed from the cabinet. He was then arrested on February 10 under additional charges of terrorism and treason.

State prosecutors in court also claimed documents on a pen drive confiscated along with the weapons revealed that Nazim was plotting a coup d’etat and planning to harm President Abdulla Yameen, Commissioner of Police Hussein Waheed and the Tourism Minister.

The documents were presented in a closed hearing, allegedly to demonstrate the former defence minister had a motive in smuggling the pistol.

Nazim’s family had previously said “there is no hope for a fair trial” due to a “notoriously politicised judiciary,” and said Nazim had “fallen foul of a political conspiracy, one in which powerful forces within the government have sought to destroy him and prevent him from challenging the leadership of the ruling party.”

Right to defence “obstructed”

At a 4:oopm hearing on Thursday, state prosecutors and defence lawyers presented closing statements.

State prosecutor Adam Arif said Nazim had admitted police discovered the weapons in his bedroom during a search carried out in his presence. Claiming Nazim had failed to explain who the weapons belonged to, Arif said he must be held responsible for the pistol and three bullets discovered under his roof.

Tests carried out by Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) proved the weapons were functioning and dangerous. Further, the MNDF had said the weapons did not come from the state armory, he said.

Police officers had also testified the raid and search were conducted according to rules and regulations, he added.

But referring to the Criminal Court’s refusal to call the majority of Nazim’s defence witnesses, defence lawyers contended the court had “obstructed” Nazim from mounting a proper defence.

Lawyers claimed over 15 SWAT officers broke down the door to Nazim’s apartment on the night of the raid, barged into his bedroom in the dark, pointed a riot gun at his head and escorted him and his wife into the living room.

SWAT officers then spent at least ten minutes unsupervised in the former Defence Minister’s bedroom, during which they planted the bag containing the pistol in a bedside drawer, lawyers suggested.

Police testimony confirmed the search team had arrived approximately 15 minutes after the SWAT officers secured the premises, but state prosecutors had failed to explain the gap, lawyers argued.

The defence team also contended police conduct of the raid and search was unlawful, arguing the resulting evidence was therefore inadmissible in a court of law.

Lawyers said if the defence had been allowed to call its witnesses, it would have been possible to prove police spent time unsupervised in Nazim’s bedroom, and that SWAT officers were previously under investigation for criminal activities.

They would also have been able to prove the pistol was in fact imported by the state for the protection of foreign dignitaries, they added.

Lawyers urged judges not to accept the testimony of police officers, claiming they had lied in court. Lawyers pointed to what they called serious contradictions in testimony, as one claimed the search team had checked the ceiling and above a cupboard in the bedroom, while the others denied doing so.

Some witnesses claimed secret information indicated the weapons were located on either the seventh or eight floor while others said it was just the eighth floor, lawyers said.

The panel overseeing Nazim’s case are the same judges who sentenced former President Mohamed Nasheed to 13 years in jail on March 13.

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