Azima requests court not to accept state’s witnesses

Former legal affairs minister Azima Shakoor has requested the Criminal Court not to accept the state’s witnesses regarding her aiding money laundering charge.

At Monday’s hearing, the state proposed witnesses for Azima Shakoor’s charges, which include former President Abdulla Yameen, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) head Muavviz Rasheed, and former ACC head Hassan Luthufee.

At the hearing, Azima requested the court to reject the witnesses, saying that the court cannot hear Yameen’s testimony since he is charged with money laundering, citing the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that people charged in the same case cannot be used as witnesses at the trial.

Azima said the court should also reject Muavviz and Luthufee’s testimonies since they had not stopped suspicious financial transactions and did not freeze the suspicious accounts when they had the opportunity.

At the hearing, Criminal Court chief judge Ahmed Hailam said that Luthufee has sent a letter to the court, stating that the current environment is not conducive to fairness and justice and refusing to testify due to threats to his life.

The state’s attorney said that the police service has a recording of its interview with Luthufee on Yameen’s money laundering investigation and that he had not raised any of these issues in the interview. The state asked the court to make a decision after listening to the recording.

Azima also urged the court against to reject Bank of Maldives (BML)’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Shareef as a witness, since he is being investigated for allegedly lying to the parliament’s committee. The state’s attorney said that Shareef’s testimony can be heard, since he has not been charged or found guilty of anything.

Yameen is accused of violating an agreement with the ACC for refusing to hand over the laundered money by transferring it to an escrow account created by the ACC.

Judge Hailam asked the state’s attorney whether it was illegal for ACC to create an escrow account, and whether it was also illegal for Azima to advice ACC to create the account. The state’s attorney responded that creating an escrow account is not illegal, but noted that it was illegal to transfer laundered money between accounts, since it would conceal the source.

Azima said that she did not give any advice to ACC and merely fulfilled her job as legal affairs minister by passing on messages between Yameen and ACC. She added that she would not have committed any illegal act, even if requested by the President.