Jihad summoned to court under police custody

The High Court of the Maldives has stated that former Vice President Abdullah Jihad had to be summoned to court under police custody in accordance with a court order to hand over the documents needed for the appeal of the case dismissing the charges against him.

The state is prosecuting Jihad, who is the Chairman of the Maldives International Financial Services Authority, for allegedly acting against the State's interests when he signed the Fushidhiggaru lagoon agreement on behalf of the government while he was the Finance Minister in 2013.

In this case, Jihad is charged with acting against the State's interests in a matter that could have been beneficial to the State. After the Criminal Court decided that the case could not proceed, the State appealed the case in the High Court.

During today's hearing at the High Court, the presiding judge of the bench stated that Jihad had to be brought to court under a court order issued to the police even to hand over the case documents.

Jihad said that he was unaware of any case against him in court and that he had only returned to the Maldives last Thursday after being abroad. He stated that when the police came to his house, he went to court with them willingly and expressed his desire to proceed with the case with a lawyer. Jihad requested five days to hire a lawyer and review the documents.

However, the judge stated that such cases are required to be concluded within 14 days from the date of submission to the court, and thus, it is not possible to grant the amount of time requested by the defendant.

Jihad stated that he needs more time because he received the documents only yesterday. However, the judge said that when the court officer went to Jihad's residence with the documents, the maid initially said Jihad was at home, but after a phone call, she said he wasn't. The judge explained that they had to serve the documents under a police order because the documents were not accepted from his residence initially.

"There are foreigners living there. So she might not have known. I received the documents yesterday. I also worked on finding a lawyer," Jihad responded to the judge's statement.

Jihad said that he is not someone who evades courts and that he has previously appeared in court as instructed. He also expressed his disappointment that the judges were saying he was not cooperating with the court in the case.

Judge Mohamed Niyaz, who was on the bench hearing the case, said that when the law stipulates a specific timeframe for concluding cases, and as this opportunity is not given in other cases, they cannot make a special exception for Jihad. All three judges instructed Jihad to respond to the charges.

However, Jihad repeatedly requested for more time, stating that he doesn't have a lawyer and cannot respond to legal points on his own.

The judges decided to proceed with the hearing of the case. They gave the state the opportunity to highlight their points regarding the charges. Even when given the chance to respond to the state's arguments, Jihad requested the opportunity to get a lawyer.

The judges did not grant this request and concluded the hearings of the case and announced that if there's nothing else to clarify, the next step would be to deliver the verdict in the case.

When the Criminal Court decided that the case against Jihad could not proceed, the High Court initially rejected the state's appeal on the grounds that Jihad's residential address was unclear.

When the case was submitted for the second time, the court decided that it could not accept the case as the deadline for resubmission had passed. The judges' panel of the High Court had previously endorsed this decision.

However, a bench of three High Court judges decided that it is appropriate to grant permission to accept the case. This decision was made because the state claimed that the case couldn't be submitted within the previously given 15-day period due to the inability to arrange Jihad's court appearance, as he had left the country during that time.

The courts decision states that this was considered a circumstance beyond one's control, which is why they decided to accept the case.

While the High Court made this decision, the state had previously appealed to the Supreme Court regarding the earlier decision by the High Court judges' panel to not accept the case.