Male’, Maldives – Former president and current Speaker of Parliament, Mohamed Nasheed has said that he cried on the day the former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom was sentenced.
While speaking at a press conference held yesterday at MDP office, Speaker Nasheed said that opposition leaders being in jail was not something to celebrate and that it was upsetting to see that some media’s reporting that the former President Yameen had been jailed for sentencing Speaker Nasheed to jail during Yameen’s administration.
“That is not something I glorify and run around celebrating with fireworks. You might recall that people had put up fireworks, singing, dancing and distributing flowers when I was sentenced. But it was an upsetting moment when Yameen was sentenced. I cried. It is not something I wish for”
Former President and Speaker of Parliament Mohamed Nasheed
Speaker Nasheed went on to state that Former President Yameen got the opportunity to end the culture of imprisonment of former leaders and that if he had done things like that during his administration, things would have been very different.
He also added that the trust on the judiciary has increased and that Former President Yameen has the full right to appeal his sentence. Speaker Nasheed also said that even though he did not wish to see the former president behind bars, that the laws of the country needed to be upheld and that all the presidents need to know that they cannot rule the country and do everything as however they wished.
“Everyone needs to understand that presidency is not something you just get out of nowhere. We all leaders and the ones to come in the future need to know that we are not that important, leaders are not that important”
Former President and Speaker of Parliament Mohamed Nasheed
Speaker Nasheed has also said that he did not wish political leaders to be in jail during the upcoming local council elections and that he wish the PPM candidate for Male’ mayors seat, Dr. Mohamed Muiz not to be arrested until the election was over.
The Former Maldives president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering in November 2019 with a fine of USD 5 million. This is because, Yameen received over USD 1 million of government money through a private company as part of a deal to lease a number of tropical islands for hotel development.
