The Supreme Court, at 9 am on Wednesday, initiated proceedings to decide on the state’s appeal to reconsider the High Court decision excluding new evidence being introduced against former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom. The High Court, on 18 April, while quashing the 11-year jail sentence handed down to Yameen in the Aarah Island, Vaavu (V.) Atoll, lease case, had ordered the Criminal Court to retry the case.
The High Court judgment set out stipulations to be taken into consideration by the lower court in terms of the retrial, one of which was that, since the prosecution had been deemed to have violated procedure with the introduction of new evidence during the initial trial, such evidence should be excluded.
The Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) filed an appeal with the Supreme Court on 24 July seeking to quash the High Court’s order to exclude new evidence.
The prosecution made the case that the High Court’s order to exclude the new evidence contradicts previous decisions by the Supreme Court. At Wednesday’s hearing, counsel for the prosecution, Ahmed Shafeeu, said the lower court’s decision to consider evidence should be assessed when the case is re-examined.
As such, the prosecution appealed to the Supreme Court, requesting that, in connection with the evidence submitted under Article 135 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the defence be given an opportunity to enter any submission into the record; both parties be allowed to argue the evidence at trial; and the lower court be directed to reconsider the admissibility of the evidence.
Yameen’s lawyer, Hamza Latheef, said there was no provision in the Criminal Procedure Code to present counter-evidence to respond to a statement made by a witness.
“The result of such absence is that you have to go to Parliament [the legislature]. I do not think the result of such absence is that judges open a door not grounded in the law,” Latheef said.
Latheef appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the prosecution’s appeal against the High Court’s decision was not valid, as it violated the rules previously upheld by the Supreme Court. He further contended that the grounds on which the High Court’s decision was based had not been appealed by the prosecution, and that if the case were heard on its merits, there would be no need to change the High Court’s decision.
The new evidence ordered to be excluded by the High Court is a submission by the prosecution seeking to prove that the money deposited in Yameen’s account resulted from a currency exchange transaction. The High Court quashed Yameen’s bribery and money laundering conviction, made by the Criminal Court, on the grounds that the lower court had made errors in assessing the evidence.
The Criminal Court began hearing the case in August last year after the High Court ordered a retrial. However, hearings have been adjourned with the appeal in the Supreme Court currently ongoing.