Exiled former President Mohamed Nasheed's international legal counsel has expressed concern over Maldives' ambassador-designate to Colombo, Mohamed Hussain's Shareef's threats to unlawfully detain their client in Sri Lanka.
A statement issued by his party, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) on Wednesday, noted that members of President Nasheed's international legal counsel are "very concerned" over Shareef's threats.
Noting that "any attempt by a Maldivian diplomat to detain President Nasheed in Sri Lanka would constitute a violation of international law as well as Sri Lankan criminal law," international human rights law expert Amal Clooney said that he "should not be returned to the Maldives to serve a sentence that resulted from a sham trial, and it is incumbent on the Sri Lankan authorities to ensure that his rights are respected while he is in their country."
Human rights lawyer and founder of 'Freedom Now', Jared Genser, said that "the comments by the Ambassador-designate are as outrageous as they are in flagrant violation of international law".
"No country can violate another's sovereignty by abducting their citizens from a foreign territory. Such an action would be in clear violation of the obligations of the Maldives under The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons From Enforced Disappearance, a treaty to which it is a signatory," added Genser.
Former President was given a 13-year jail sentence in March 2015 over terror charges, and was granted medical leave and allowed to travel to the United Kingdom in January 2016. UK had granted him political asylum almost immediately, and Nasheed has traveled to various countries since; including Lanka, India, United States, Norway and Denmark.
While the passports of a number of senior opposition officials have been revoked by the authorities, most of them have been granted asylum in Sri Lanka and are based there, with the former President travelling there often. He is currently in Colombo.
In an interview to a local news station, Shareef, who the opposition noted was appointed as the Ambassador to Sri Lanka under questionable circumstances, threatened to detain Nasheed and 'forcibly' return him to the Maldives.
"If a Maldivianauthority requests me to detain and return Mohamed Nasheed back to Maldives, I will. It’s very simple. They have to say, this is an individual who we are seeking. I’ll even go out to the street myself and do it… if our authorities inform me, request it of me, our embassy will enforce it," he said.
MDP's statement said that Shareef's threats "are not to be taken lightly," noting that back in 2015, social media activist Ahmed "Shumba Gong" Ashraf was illegally abducted from Sri Lanka and sent to the Maldives.
The Sri Lanka government had faced criticism from the international community following Ashraf's arrest, with the country's foreign ministry later blaming Maldives 'for presenting inaccurate information on Ashraf's arrest'.
