Amal Clooney part of jailed Maldives ex-president’s legal team

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Jailed former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed on Tuesday, April 7, announced a high-profile international legal team, including prominent rights lawyer Amal Clooney, to prepare a fresh attempt to secure his release.

Nasheed was imprisoned for 13 years last month following a rushed trial which the UN says was in violation of Maldives’ own laws and practices and international standards.

Nasheed’s office said 3 celebrity lawyers had agreed to represent him.

It named them as Jared Genser, who had represented Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi; Ben Emmerson, a judge on war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia; and Amal Clooney, the wife of Hollywood star George, who had defended the former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

“I am very pleased to have such an extraordinary team agree to take up my legal defense internationally,” Nasheed was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his office.

It was not clear how the team would work to secure his release after a deadline to file a formal appeal against his conviction and sentence lapsed late last month.

Nasheed insisted that Maldivian authorities blocked his appeal by not releasing the court transcripts necessary to file it.

With the appointment of a foreign panel to represent him, Nasheed said he was eager to expose what he called the autocratic rule of President Abdulla Yameen.

“I am determined to ensure the world understands the injustice of my detention and the broader suffering of the Maldivian people under President Yameen,” he said.

The Maldives government has resisted international pressure to release Nasheed, jailed under tough anti-terror laws for ordering the arrest of a chief judge in 2012 when he was president.

The Maldivian government said last month that Nasheed had decided not to appeal, a claim denied by the former president.

The decision to prosecute Nasheed under terror laws has made his conviction particularly controversial and sparked a series of protests.

Nasheed’s party says the verdict has dealt a blow to the country’s young democracy 7 years after it embraced multi-party elections following 3 decades of rule by strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the current leader’s half-brother.

The opposition has held night-time rallies over the past year to protest at what it calls growing authoritarianism, which has damaged the atoll nation’s image as a tourist paradise. – Rappler.com