Over 100s of evidence against murdered nurse's ex, court declares trial to proceed

Maldives Criminal Court on Monday, June 27 has declared for the trial proceedings against the ex-husband of the murdered expat nurse, Mary Grace.

Grace, a Philippines national worked in Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) as a nurse.

State prosecution presented a total of 110 articles of varying evidences against the primary suspect of the case, Grace's husband Marvin.

While state is prosecuting Marvin for the alleged murder of his wife, state is also prosecuting one Haleemath Lamha, a nurse and colleague of Grace, for aiding and abetting the murder.

Trial proceedings for the two suspects are carried separately, while Lamha's scheduled hearing for Monday was cancelled.

During the previous hearing, Marvin denied pleading guilty for the alleged crime. However, state had presented a total of 110 articles of evidences out of which 74 are witnesses.

The presiding judge of the case, Justice Hussain Faiz Rashaad held that the state presented evidences were applicable in accordance to the civil regulations.

Although state prosecution addressed its decision to provide the assessment report of the deceased nurse and her husband's child as evidence, prosecution has not received the report.

Prosecution clarified that their child is residing in home country, Philippines due to which they are experiencing delays in acquiring the report.

However, the prosecution declared that exclusion of the report under the court's discretion, should it not arrive before the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, will be respected.

During Monday's hearing, the defense argued against providing unlimited time-frame for evidence gathering.

Responding to this, the presiding judge held that the assessment report will not be accepted unless it is presented before the conclusion of the preliminary hearing.

Defense further addressed hindrances on evidence gathering due to the defendant being an expatriate, and requested from the court for additional time.

Although the court held that the inability of defense to produce evidence was not reasonable, while further arguing that evidences should be presented by the parties during the same hearing.

However, the court had provided a period of seven days to the defense to collect evidence.

Meanwhile, the prosecution requested to extend the defendant's remand until trial conclusion which was concurred by the defense counsel as well, to which the court had ordered accordingly.