Criminal Court sentences Luthufee to 7 months over abscondment

The Criminal Court on Wednesday sentenced Abdulla Luthufee, one of the conspirators behind the 1988 coup d'état, to seven months and 18 days of imprisonment over abscondment.

Speaking at a hearing held on Monday, Luthfee asserted that he had not absconded, but had travelled and remained abroad to seek medical treatment. However, he agreed to confess to the charges in order to expedite the legal process.

Although the standard punishment for abscondment is set at nine months and 18 days, Luthfee received a more lenient sentence since he accepted the charges.

After acquiring a temporary one-year travel document from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Luthufee departed to India to seek medical treatment on January 16, 2010. At the time he was serving a 25-year prison sentence imposed by the High Court.

He is charged with absconding from his sentence at the Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Service and for remaining abroad until May 1, 2019 without informing Maldivian authorities.

Luthufee was extradited and brought to Maldives on July 9, 2019. He is currently detained in Maafushi Prison.

Following eight years of living abroad illegally, Luthufee turned himself in on May 1, 2019 amidst heightened security measures introduced by Sri Lankan authorities after a series of bomb blasts.

Luthfee was the leader behind an attempt to unlawfully overthrow the Maldivian government by taking over the National Security Service (NSS) with the help of armed militants from Sri Lanka's People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). The attack resulted in the death of 11 Maldivian civilians and eight military personnel.

Luthfee and his partner, Sagar Ahmed Nasir, were initially sentenced to capital punishment for their crimes. However, the then-President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom reduced their sentences to life imprisonment.

If he had not fled, Luthufee's sentence would have ended in 2014 since the Maldivian constitution defines life imprisonment as 25 years.

Meanwhile, Sagar Ahmed Nasir was freed after he completed his jail sentence.