Hassan Ismail, third suspect arrested over the ‘fake’ video of masked men in police uniform threatening the government, has been released by the Criminal Court.
Criminal Court ordered his release on Saturday evening.
Ismail was given a five-day remand on the 19th of March, which expires today. Hence, when produced to Criminal Court on Saturday, the court ruled to release him from police custody.
While the video shows masked men in police Special Operations (SO) unit uniforms threatening to join the mass anti-government protest, the other two arrested in relation to the video are RaajjeTV’s Head of Programmes Amir Saleem and Senior Video Journalist Mohamed Wisam. They were arrested on the 16th of March, and given a 10-day remand the next day. Prosecutors had sought to issue them a 30-day remand, despite only having an “intelligence report” to back their accusations.
Both Saleem and Wisam deny the many allegations against them, including identity fraud.
RaajjeTV has also denied any wrongdoing by the station and its staff, saying that it “will never encourage or be party to any illegal activity”.
Furthermore, noting that it was senior officials of the ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) that made the accusation against the station and its staff, before police revealed any information on the matter, RaajjeTV said that this is “a deliberate attempt to slander the station and shut [them] down”.
