Mohamed Ameen Dabhelia – 2018/11/02

A senior Project Coordinator in the Maldives says former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed was branded a fugitive from justice when he went into exile in 2016 after seeking medical treatment abroad while serving a 13 year jail sentence.

Elected president in the country’s first democratic poll in 2008, Nasheed was found guilty of terror-related violence in 2015 in a trial the UN said was politically motivated.

Transparency Maldives’ Ahmed Tolal told Radio Islam that the former President returned home from exile on Thursday, two days after the country’s Supreme Court withdrew a warrant for his arrest.

“There were thousands and thousands of people on the streets to greet him, what we are seeing in the Maldives right now is entirely different that we saw a couple of years ago.”

Tolal says there is a new sense of freedom and transparency in the Maldives.

“People are allowed to go on to the streets in numbers, police are not stopping them, and there is jubilation.”

Since outgoing President Abdulla Yameen’s defeat, political prisoners have been freed and exiles have returned from abroad as the Maldives prepares a transition to new leadership.

Listen To The Full Interview Below: