The Supreme Court of Maldives on Sunday said there is no legal obstruction to execute its order on releasing jailed Opposition leaders, the Sun Online reported. The bench issued the statement after the government ordered security forces to resist any move by the top court to arrest or impeach President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom (pictured above).
“We have received information that things might happen that will lead to a national security crisis,” Attorney General Mohamed Anil had said. “Any Supreme Court order to arrest the president would be unconstitutional and illegal.”
The statement came after the police announced an investigation into an alleged bribery case involving Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and Justice Ali Hameed Mohamed and moved to arrest Chief Judicial Administrator Hassan Saeed, Maldives Independent reported. The Supreme Court later overruled the order to arrest Saeed.
The Opposition condemned Anil’s statement and termed it an “illegal takeover of the Maldivian state”. The parties, in a statement, said the attorney general had “effectively declared that he was now the chief judiciary authority in the Maldives and the security services were to follow his orders and not those of the Supreme Court”.
The security forces later sealed off the parliament and arrested two opposition lawmakers – Abdulla Sinan and Ilham Ahmed – on bribery charges, Al Jazeera reported.
President Gayoom had said on Saturday that he was ready to hold early presidential elections to allow voters to decide who should lead their country. Gayoom, the half-brother of the country’s former leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, has crushed the Opposition in the country by targeting high-profile leaders.
The country’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Nasheed was jailed in 2013 for ordering the arrest of a senior judge. Nasheed, however, later fled to Britain and received asylum. At present, Nasheed lives in Sri Lanka. Most of the president’s other political rivals, who had not gone in exile, were jailed. Gayoom, however, had a fallout with his half-brother and lawmakers loyal to Maumoon Abdul Gayoom have now joined forces with Nasheed against the president.
In August 2017, the Opposition had claimed that security forces had locked down Parliament on Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s order to stop them from attempting to impeach the Speaker, who is an ally of the president.
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