High Court schedules MP Riyaz's appeal of obstruction charges for Monday

The High Court has scheduled MP Abdulla Riyaz’s appeal of obstruction charges police put forth against him for allegedly not allowing access to his phone.

The hearing is to be held at 9:15 AM on Monday. Proceedings for this case have been ongoing since last year and the lawmaker is to put forth his defence.

On the night of 27th March last year, Riyaz said he had been walking down Maaveyo magu, of which the first half is not very well-lit, when two men, claiming to be police officers but not in uniform, showed him a warrant and asked him to handover his mobile phone.

Riyaz refused, claiming that the street was too dark for him to read the warrant and that he had been attacked on that very road before and so was hesitant to oblige.

The parliamentarian, who had served as police commissioner himself, said that the officers had forcefully taken his phone from him.

On the next day, Riyaz had reportedly been shown a warrant stipulating that he reveal the passcode to the phone, which was now switched off.

MP Riyaz said that he never switches his phone off, and always unlocks it using fingerprint access. However, after the police had confiscated it and asked him to unlock it, the phone had been switched off and Riyaz, because he almost never uses it, could not recall the passcode required for initial unlocking after start-up. He had then given them three different passcodes, which were all incorrect.