Lawyers for Ahmed Faris Maumoon, representative for Dhiggaru Constituency, say that officers of Maldives Police Service (MPS) had only posed two questions to the Parliamentarian following his re-arrest.
In a press conference on Wednesday evening, the lawyers said that even though MP Faris was arrested on Saturday, he was interrogated on Tuesday. In the interrogation, the Parliamentarian was asked only two questions; one over attempted bribery of Parliamentarians and whether he had planned a coup or his statement on allegations that he had planned one.
Lawyer Maumoon Hameed said that his client had responded negative to both questions. He further added that Police had refused to divulge additional information on the charges against MP Faris. These questions, Lawyer Hameed said could be asked by summoning MP Faris to MPS headquarters.
He added that it was deeply concerning that MP Faris was jailed to answer these very minor questions. It, he said, further proved that the charges on MP Faris were baseless.
Lawyer Hameed noted that an additional bribery charge was not mentioned when MP Faris was released by Criminal Court on January 25th. The grounds for the second arrest, he said, were on baseless grounds.
He said the second arrest was based on an incident that occurred on May 2017. A search on MP Faris’ apartment was carried out on basis of this allegation on the 27th of this month, where MP Faris’ phone was checked. The same phone, Hameed said was not part of evidence in the first bribery charge raised on MP Faris last year. This, he added, proved that the said evidence was fabricated.
MPS had also informed MP Faris that no evidence was found in the search carried out on his residence.
Lawyer Hussain Shameem said criminal charges must be raised on an individual on basis of facts and evidence and therefore, there was no room to believe that even the investigations were valid. These investigations, he said were designed to ruin MP Faris’ political career.
