Maldives High Court frees jailed ex-President Abdulla Yameen

Jailed former Maldives president Abdulla Yameen was freed Thursday after the High Court overturned his conviction and 11-year prison sentence on graft and money-laundering charges.

A three-judge High Court bench in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation held that Yameen’s 2022 trial had been unfair and ordered a new trial.

“The lower court ruling was not fair,” judge Hassan Shafeeu said while reading out a lengthy decision that was broadcast live.

The decision came ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, in which Yameen is fielding candidates from a political party he formed while serving his sentence.

Yameen was convicted on two charges after a court found he accepted a bribe to grant a lease on a small islet for tourism development while he was in power between 2013 and 2018.

Thursday’s ruling set that verdict aside. Yameen’s co-accused Yusuf Naeem, a businessman who was said to have paid the alleged bribe of $1 million, was also freed.

Yameen, 64, was held at the high-security Maafushi prison but was transferred to house arrest the day after his ally, Mohamed Muizzu, won presidential elections last September.

The pro-China former leader had borrowed heavily and built thousands of houses and other infrastructure in the small but strategically placed Indian Ocean archipelago during his five-year tenure.