Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and Justice Ali Hameed have provided evidence in defense of the obstruction of justice charges raised against them, at the first trial hearing on Tuesday night.

The two justices and former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom are being tried over the state’s obstruction of justice charges together. They were charged for refusing to hand over their phones to the police after their arrests during the state of emergency in February.

At the hearing, Gayoom said he was unable to present any evidence since all the relevant documents were with his former legal team, which had withdrawn from his case before the hearing began in protest of the unlawful nature in which the case is being handled by the Criminal Court.

As defensive evidence, Chief Justice Saeed submitted the names of former Judicial Administrator Hassan Saeed and the head of the Supreme Court’s protocol department, Athikaa Ibrahim.

Justice Hameed also submitted the name of ex-Judicial Administrator Saeed as well as his wife, Fathimath Nasira, and a woman named Hashma Hassan.

At the hearing, their lawyers complained that the charge is without any basis since a phone is not evidence in itself and that the state prosecutors have also admitted that they could not confirm whether there was evidence in their phones.

In response, the state prosecutors said that in the preliminary hearing on April 22 they said that the information contained in the phones could be used as evidence. Justice Hameed’s lawyer asked that the recording of that hearing be played to confirm what they said, but the judge refused.

The justices were arrested on February 6 at the Supreme Court after President Abdulla Yameen declared a state of emergency. President Yameen has claimed that the justices had attempted to overthrow the government by releasing a Supreme Court ruling on February 1 that ordered the release of nine high-profile political prisoners and reinstatement of 12 opposition MPs to the parliament.

Police officers had failed to find their phones at the Supreme Court during the arrest and the justices had refused to hand them over.