Police are accusing arrested Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed of obstructing the functioning of the government, revealed his lawyer Hisaan Hussain late Thursday.
In a tweet, she announced that the police have already launched an investigation. Saeed is accused of obstructing governmental operations for shutting down the e-government system after the President’s Office sent four letters to the Supreme Court.
Hisaan stated that her client had denied the accusation, and further noted that “there is no law that obligates SC to use e-govt system”.
The four letters in question were sent by President Abdulla Yameen after the top court issued its landmark ruling February 1 to release nine high profile political prisoners. In the letters, the president had claimed that enforcing the ruling would throw the functioning of the state into disarray and shatter the constitutional system, and thus had requested the court to decide on a solution.
President Yameen had later revealed that Saeed had not responded to any of the letters, which he claimed was one of the reasons for declaring the state of emergency soon after the apex court’s shocking ruling.
Saeed was arrested under the state of emergency, accused of bribery and attempting to stage a coup, for which the police had claimed to have obtained documents as evidence. However, the police on Wednesday had forwarded another case against Saeed to the Prosecutor General’s Office, seeking to charge him with destroying evidence needed for the investigation. Subsequently, the police faced backlash over the discrepancies.
Apart from Saeed, the police had also arrested another top court judge, Ali Hameed, former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and the Chief Judicial Administrator Hassan Saeed under accusations of bribery and attempting a coup. Others arrested for the same alleged offences include the lawmakers Faris Maumoon, Abdulla Sinan, and Ilham Ahmed, as well as the managing director of Villa Group, Ibrahim Siyad Qasim, who is the son of Jumhoory Party leader Qasim Ibrahim.
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