Criminal Court has decided to postpone the trial of former President Abdulla Yameen on charges related to the Aarah case as a related case is currently ongoing at the Supreme Court.
Criminal Court has decided to postpone the trial of former President Abdulla Yameen on charges related to the Aarah case as a related case is currently ongoing at the Supreme Court.
Yameen is accused of accepting USD 1 million as bribe in the lease of Vaavu atoll Aarah, and for laundering that money. In addition to Yameen, charges in this case have been raised against former Member of Parliament for Felidhoo constituency Yoosuf Naeem. The Criminal Court convicted both in December 2022, but the verdicts were revoked by the High Court this year, ordering a retrial.
The High Court ruling, however, says that new evidence cannot be submitted, which the State has appealed at the Supreme Court.
As today's hearing commenced, Yameen's lawyers said that while the State has appealed to the Criminal Court to not accept some of the defense evidence, the State's appeal at the Supreme Court includes a motion to submit new evidence to disprove some of Yameen's defense evidence. Yameen's legal team said that while this case is ongoing at Supreme Court, it is not right to proceed with a related case at the Criminal Court.
Based on this, the lawyers appealed to postpone the trial until the appeal case at Supreme Court is concluded.
The State retorted that the Supreme Court had not ordered for the trial at Criminal Court to be halted.
However, Yameen's lawyers highlighted that the State itself had stated that the two cases are related, though they had not stated an exact stand on postponing the case.
The defense also voiced concerns about not having received a number of CDs containing some documents.
Yameen said that it had only been decided too late that the videos of the investigative process needs to be received. He said that he had refused to speak further during the investigative stage due to there being concerns that some documents had been forged.
Judge Ali Nadheem said that he believed there is an overlapping between the case at the Criminal Court and the appeal case at the Supreme Court. Due to this, Judge Nadheem decided to postpone the case until the case at the Supreme Court is concluded.
In addition to Yameen, former MP for Felidhoo Yoosuf Naeem also has charges against him in the Aarah case. High Court earlier ordered a retrial for Naeem as well.
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