MP Riyaz to be charged with obstruction of justice

Opposition-aligned MP Abdulla Riyaz has been charged with obstructing police justice.

After having attended a police summon at 20:00 on Sunday night, Riyaz said he face allegations for refusing to allow officers to access his mobile phone.

On the night of 27th March, Riyaz had reportedly been walking down Maaveyo magu, of which the first half is not very well-lit, when two men – not in uniform – had showed him a warrant and asked him to handover his mobile phone.

Riyaz refused on the grounds that the street was too dark for him to read the supposed warrant, and that he had been attacked there before and so was hesitant to indulge their request.

The parliamentarian, who had served as police commissioner himself, said that the officers had forcefully taken his phone from him, when he told them that he would hand it over at a police station.

He then said he was taken to station shortly after. On the next day, Riyaz had been shown a warrant stipulating that he reveal his lock code to the police.

Further, MP Riyaz said that he never switches his phone off, and always unlocks it using fingerprint access. However, after the police had confiscated it and asked him to unlock it, the phone had been switched off and Riyaz, because he almost never uses it, could not recall the passcode required for initial unlocking after start-up. He had then given them three different passcodes, which were all incorrect.

The police have been investigating allegations that opposition parliamentarians had threatened and bribed pro-government MPs ahead of the, now failed, vote of no-confidence against parliament speaker Abdulla Maseeh.