Minister Nazim says President Yameen, ex-police chief responsible for framing him

President Abdulla Yameen and then police commissioner Hussain Waheed are both primarily responsible for the ‘fake’ weapons charge against him, says former Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim.

Minister Nazim said this while speaking to journalists at his arrival from Malaysia, where he has resided since the Supreme Court issued a stay order on the sentence pending results of a review.

Nazim told journalists that he will be meeting president-elect Ibrahim Solih, whose coalition partner former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom met with Nazim earlier this week, and discussing ‘justice for the wrongs’ against him.

The former Yameen administration minister said that he will be asking president-elect Solih to promptly address the cases of unfair imprisonment during this past tenure. Nazim and his brother Adam Azim, the prominent CEO of the State Trading Organization, has been staunch opponents of Yameen since.

Nazim was convicted of weapons smuggling and possession charges in 2015 through judicial proceedings widely regarded as being influenced. Sentencing was delayed by eight months and judges on the bench were transferred to regional courts and replaced.

The Supreme Court, despite having suspended the sentences of Nazim and several other political prisoners, had initially rejected his appeal of the 11-year prison sentence. Nazim and his lawyers maintain his innocence and hold their claim that the police had planted evidence against the defense minister during a poorly-documented raid of his home in Malé.

Yameen’s government had openly cracked down on efforts to campaign for Nazim’s freedom and in June this year arrested his brother Azim on charges of encouraging the overthrow of the government. The campaign for Nazim’s release and the discussion it prompted of the state of democracy in Maldives was backed by president-elect Solih during his campaign for office ahead of September’s elections.