Zahid accuses the defense in Yameen's murder trial of defamation

Zahid Rameez, a former council member of the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), has claimed that his name was presented as a witness of the defense in the murder trial of human rights activist Yameen Rasheed, in order to defame him.

The court made the decision to summon Zahid at a hearing held on Sunday. The state raised murder charges on six individuals; Ismail Haisham Rasheed, Hussain Ziyad, Ismail Rasheed, Hassan Shifaz, Mohamed Dhifran, and Ahmed Zihan Ismail.

In response to Ismail Rasheed's defense attorney, Maumoon Hameed, submitting his name as a witness of the defense, Zahid claimed that this is an attempt to politicize the trial as well as to defame him and the Progressive Party of Maldives.

While Ismail Rasheed is charged with murder using a sharp weapon, Zahid claims that he has never heard of or met the defendant.

Following the witness summons issued against him, Zahid has lodged a disciplinary complaint against Maumoon Hameed at the bar Council where Maumoon is the president.

In his complaint, Zahid claims that Maumoon violated "professional" standards and highlighted that neither the police nor the prosecutor general's office has questioned him regarding the matter.

As such, the law does not mandate witnesses of the defense to have previously been questioned by the police or the prosecutor general.

Zahid has previously been summoned regarding the murder of Yameen Rasheed by the Presidential Commission on Disappearances and Deaths over the death threats he had sent to Yameen via Twitter in 2011 and 2012.

Yameen was stabbed to death at the stairwell of his apartment building, Maafannu Spatula, brutally on 23 April 2017.