The Supreme Court, on Thursday, declared that alleged sex offender Mohamed Fayaz was fired from Maldives Police Service in line with laws and regulations.
Fayaz, who was a Corporal at the time, was sacked in 2010 over accusations that he, along with three other police officers, forced a woman near Maaveyo Mosque in capital Male' into a police car and sexually assaulted her inside the vehicle.
Then-Chief Inspector Risheef Thoha and another officer were also fired over the matter, although they were both reinstated after High Court later ruled that their terminations were unlawful.
In 2014, Fayaz filed his unemployment at the Civil Court claiming that he was fired unlawfully. The court ruled in favour of Fayaz citing the lack of evidence against him, and ordered him to be reinstated at Maldives Police Service.
However, the Attorney General's (AG) Office appealed the case at High Court resulting in the upper court rejecting the Civil Court's verdict in 2016.
Fayaz then, in 2017, appealed the case at the Supreme Court, which upheld the High Court's ruling and maintained that he was fired on acceptable grounds.
The former officer had cited two main points in his appeal, stating that there was not enough evidence to fire him and High Court had ruled that the two other officers were fired unlawfully while he did not receive the same verdict.
Since the very beginning, Fayaz denied any involvement in the sexual assault case, insisting that he was asleep while the crime took place.
The police debunked Fayaz's alibi with evidence of call logs made at the time he claimed he was asleep, in addition to witness statements which placed Fayyaz in the police car after hours.
Referring to the aforementioned points, the Supreme Court stated that the police's disciplinary board had also highlighted discrepancies in Fayaz's story, which led the board to conclude that he had fabricated his retelling of events.
Moreover, the Supreme Court concluded that the Maldives Police Service had sacked him in line with the relevant regulations, as continuing to employ an individual that had violated the police's Code of Conduct and ethics will reflect poorly on the other employees and jeopardise the public's trust in the institution.
Referring to the reinstation of two other officers fired over the same case, the apex court asserted that Fayaz's ruling was independent of the rulings in those cases.
Although Risheef was reinstated following High Court's verdict, he was later sacked again over his involvement in a case concerning illegal liquor.
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