Jailed Nasheed to stay in Maldives after govt ‘hostage’ demand: party

Jailed Maldivian opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed’s travel abroad for surgery was scuttled at the last minute yesterday as the authorities demanded a “hostage” in his place, his party said. “The government backtracks on their decision to unconditionally allow (former) president Nasheed to travel to UK for surgery,” Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) spokesman Hamid Abdul Ghafoor said. He said the government had insisted on the nomination of a family member to act as a guarantee for his return after 30 days of treatment in Britain to serve his 13-year jail term. The guarantor would be a “hostage” who could be prosecuted if Nasheed did not return, he said. “It is an ethical issue. That is why president Nasheed has not agreed to the demand of a guarantor,” he added. The sudden development came hours after the country’s prisons chief Mohamed Husham announced that opposition leader Nasheed had been granted 30 days’ leave from prison for a spinal cord surgery and was expected to leave later yesterday. “We are making arrangements so that he can travel later today,” Husham had told reporters earlier in the day. Nasheed’s lawyers met him yesterday, a day after the government made an initial U-turn and agreed to let him travel to Britain. The Maldives government has previously refused to sanction overseas medical treatment for him. Media reports have said Male reluctantly softened its stand on Nasheed following diplomatic pressure from neighbouring India and Sri Lanka as well as former colonial power Britain. The 48-year-old former president was sentenced on terrorism charges relating to the arrest of an allegedly corrupt judge in 2012, when he was still in power. The UN has said his trial was seriously flawed and he should be released and compensated for wrongful detention. Hardline President Abdulla Yameen has refused to accept the UN ruling and is resisting international pressure to release Nasheed. London-based barrister Amal Clooney is on the legal team pressuring the government unconditionally to release Nasheed. Otherwise she will call for targeted sanctions from the international community. India’s Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar visited Male for talks with the government and stopped over in Colombo last week, while Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera made an unscheduled visit to Male on Thursday. Britain’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hugo Swire arrived in Male yesterday and held talks with Yameen but details were not disclosed. President Yameen is a half-brother of former strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled for 30 years until his defeat by Nasheed in the country’s first multi-party elections in 2008. He has cracked down on dissent and arrested political opponents. Nasheed was toppled in February 2012 in what he called a coup backed by the military and police.