Nasheed apologizes regarding the arrest of Judge Abdullah

Former President Mohamed Nasheed has apologized for the arrest of the Chief Judge of the Criminal Court, Abdullah Mohamed. Nasheed made this remark in an interview to Zeenews India.

Zeenews reported that Nasheed said that he feels he could have handled the problem in a different way while commenting on the arrest of the Chief Justice of the country's criminal court Judge Abdulla Mohamed, a move that snowballed into a political crisis.

The Indian paper said that Nasheed went on to explain that there was no election that could create a judiciary while elections ensured a democratic government was put in place. 

Nasheed told Zeenews that the judiciary continued to have judges who were handpicked by former strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and added that Gayoom’s dictatorship was hiding behind the judiciary. 

According to Zeenews, Nasheed said that all the human rights abuse cases and corruption cases were sitting with the judges and because of that his government was not able to do anything. He added that people were losing confidence in the judiciary and claimed that there were several complaints against judge Mohamed. 

Nasheed said the move by Mohamed to have a child re-enact in court how he was abused "disgusted" everybody. 

"Yes it was not the best thing to remove the judge in that fashion. But in the absence of anyone doing anything, I believe that had to be done to restore confidence of the people in the judiciary. The President had to do it. I am sorry that happened. In hindsight there may have been many other ways to do it but I do not think having a coup justifies anything." 

Nasheed said the western world may not understand the political scene in Maldives but "in simple terms judge Mohamed was becoming a nuisance,” Zeenews reported.

Meanwhile, despite this apology Nasheed has denied responsibility for illegal arrest of Judge Abdulla Mohamed. When summoned to the Human Rights Commission in relation to the case, Nasheed told the commission that he did not arrest the judge.