‘Maldives leader’s appeal scuttled’

COLOMBO: Jailed former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed has been prevented from appealing against his controversial 13-year jail sentence after authorities refused to release documents needed to prepare his case, his spokesman said on Wednesday.
The spokesman said the honeymoon islands’ first democratically elected president has been denied a copy of the trial proceedings, which he needs to lodge an appeal before a looming deadline.
“The criminal court has tried to block the appeal at every step of the way,” spokesman Hamid Abdul Ghafoor told AFP in Colombo. “It is not that he does not want to appeal, but he is not being allowed to file his papers.”
Nasheed’s office said the deadline for filing the appeal is Thursday. A Maldivian high commission (embassy) spokesman in Colombo, Hussain Mazin, said it was not until Sunday.
The Maldives government has resisted international pressure to release Nasheed, jailed this month under tough anti-terror laws for ordering the arrest of a chief judge in 2012 when he was president.
Western countries, India and the UN’s human rights chief have expressed concern over his trial, while his lawyers have said the case was aimed at destroying his political career.
The high commission in Colombo denied Nasheed has been stopped from lodging the appeal, saying he had refused to sign a copy of the case file and thereby had prevented it from being finalised.
“The court was not able to release the case report as former president Nasheed has refused to sign... and without the signature of former president Nasheed, the report cannot be finalised,” the commission said in a statement on Wednesday.
It also said that Nasheed had decided on Tuesday not to appeal, a claim denied by Ghafoor who insisted they were being blocked from filing one.