Wednesday's hearing of Yameen Rasheed's murder trial cancelled

The Criminal Court has cancelled the hearing in the murder trial of social media activist and blogger Yameen Rasheed, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

While the hearing was scheduled for 01:30 pm, it was cancelled due to "administrative reasons."

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

Charges for his murder has been levied on Ismail Haisham Rasheed, Hussain Ziyad, Ismail Rasheed, Hassan Shifaz, Mohamed Dhifran , and Ahmed Zihan Ismail.

The defendants were given the chance to present testimonies from witnesses of the defence during the last hearing of the case. As such, the court revealed that they were unable to summon Zahid Rameez, a witness of the defence, to the last hearing because they were unable to contact him.

While the court made this decision, the presidential commission on murders and enforced disappearances had also questioned Rameez last year, over the death threats issued at Yameen via Twitter in 2011 and 2012.

Additionally, the legal defence team of Haisham declared that they do not want to present any more witnesses during the previous hearing, citing that there were contradictions in the witness statements.

On the other hand, the legal defence team of Zihan Ismail expressed intent to present additional witnesses at today's hearing. Based on this, the judge stated that a hearing for witness statements would be held on January 15th with an additional hearing on January 30th.