{"id":16883,"date":"2018-09-30T18:24:10","date_gmt":"2018-09-30T18:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16883"},"modified":"2018-09-30T18:24:10","modified_gmt":"2018-09-30T18:24:10","slug":"former-maldives-leader-gayoom-freed-on-bail-a-week-after-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16883","title":{"rendered":"Former Maldives leader Gayoom freed on bail a week after election"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Maldives<\/a>\u00a0president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom\u00a0<\/span>has been released on bail\u00a0a week after his estranged half-brother Abdulla Yameen was\u00a0<\/span>defeated<\/a>\u00a0in a presidential election.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gayoom, the Indian Ocean island nation’s longest-serving leader, and his legislator son Faris Maumoon were released on Sunday by the High Court in capital Male after they filed fresh appeals against their controversial convictions.<\/p>\n

Gayoom, 80, was arrested in February<\/a> along with the country’s chief justice and another Supreme Court judge for attempting to topple Yameen, who declared a 45-day state of emergency to block his impeachment.<\/p>\n

The High Court released Gayoom on a bail of 60,000 rufiyaa ($3,900) and he was also ordered not to travel abroad without its permission.<\/p>\n

Gayoom was serving a 19-month jail term for obstruction of justice and was also under trial on a “terrorism” charge.<\/p>\n

“Finally, they are all home,” Gayoom’s daughter Yumna Maumoon said on Twitter. <\/p>\n

“Hope and pray that all political prisoners will be released soon. The nightmare is finally over Insha Allah. Thank you all who struggled hard for this day.”<\/p>\n

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Alhamdhulillaahii! Finally they are all home. ???????? ? Hope and pray that all political prisoners will be released soon. The nightmare is finally over Insha Allah. Thank you all who struggled hard for this day. pic.twitter.com\/07ZD88Xww8<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Yumna Maumoon (@yumna_maumoon) September 30, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gayoom’s other daughter, former foreign minister Dunya Maumoon, also took to Twitter saying: “So happy you are finally home.”<\/p>\n

Another Maldivian dissident, Qasim Ibrahim, was also granted bail. He obtained prison leave for medical treatment and has remained in Europe.<\/p>\n

The release followed appeals from president-elect Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who urged incumbent Yameen to free all political prisoners in the country after his stunning victory<\/a> in the September 23 election.<\/p>\n

Yameen jailed or exiled most of his rivals during a turbulent five-year term that will come to an end on November 17 when Solih is set to be sworn in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Abdulla Yameen concedes defeat in Maldives presidential election<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Soon after his defeat, Yameen freed five other political prisoners, but was delaying the release of his half-brother who could have made a claim to the leadership of his Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) party which he did on Friday.<\/p>\n

Longest-serving leader<\/h2>\n

Gayoom had ruled the tourist island nation for 30 straight years till he was defeated in its first multi-party elections in 2008.<\/p>\n

Since coming to power in 1978, Gayoom supervised his country’s transition to a major tourist destination, turning the tiny archipelago into one of the richest South Asian countries.<\/p>\n

However, his curbs on democracy rallied political opponents, who accused him of ruling the country like a dictator.<\/p>\n

In the 2008 elections, he was defeated by Mohamed Nasheed, who was imprisoned multiple times during Gayoom’s long rule.<\/p>\n

Nasheed resigned in 2012 following outrage over his decision to detain a sitting judge. Soon after he quit, he was sentenced to 13 years in jail, which he avoided by seeking asylum in the UK.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Gayoom helped his half-brother Yameen win a controversial runoff election, but they later fell out and became bitter political enemies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Maldives\u00a0president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom\u00a0has been released on bail\u00a0a week after his estranged half-brother Abdulla Yameen was\u00a0defeated\u00a0in a presidential election. Gayoom, the Indian Ocean island nation’s longest-serving leader, and his legislator son Faris Maumoon were released on Sunday by the High Court in capital Male after they filed fresh appeals against their controversial convictions. Gayoom,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":16884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}