The trial against Hassan Saeed, Judicial Administrator at the state’s Depart of Judicial Administration, over allegedly having bribed Supreme Court justices is set to begin on Sunday.
Saeed is accused of accepting a large sum of money that he allegedly used to bribe Supreme Court justices into issuing the contentious ruling on February 1st, to release unfairly detained prisoners.
A total of eight individuals have been arrested in the police’s investigation of bribery involving the Supreme Court ruling, which they say is also ‘conspiring to overthrow the government’.
These eight individuals are: Judicial Administrator Saeed, former president Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom, Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, Justice Ali Hameed and his wife Fathmath Nasira, opposition Jumhooree Party’s leader Qasim Ibrahim’s son Siyadh Qasim, MPs Faris Maumoon and Abdullah Sinan.
Authorities previously said that Saeed had escaped arrest ahead of a police operation that resulted in officers breaking and entering his residence in capital city Malé.
The police said they their search of his home, hours before announcing the ongoing state of emergency, led to them discovering ‘large amounts of cash underneath [Saeed’s] mattress’.
