Abdulla Yameen lifts emergency a day after an ex-president and two top judges were put on trial on terrorism charges.
Maldives’ President Abdulla Yameen has lifted a 45-day state of emergency he imposed after the island nation’s Supreme Court overturned criminal convictions against nine of his opponents.
In a statement on Thursday, the president’s office said Yameen lifted the emergency “in an effort to promote normalcy” despite there still existing a “diminished threat to national security”.
Under the emergency, security forces arrested former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Yameen’s half-brother, as well as two Supreme Court judges and a top judicial administrator on charges of trying to topple the government.
All four were charged with terrorism on Wednesday.
A court in the capital, Male, ordered they be held until the end of their trials.
If convicted of terrorism, they could be jailed for up to 15 years. The two judges and their aide have also been charged with receiving bribes to help overthrow the government.
Mohamed Nasheed, the Indian Ocean archipelago’s exiled former president, said Yameen lifted the emergency because “he now has no need for it”.
In a Twitter post, he said Yameen has “overrun the judiciary and legislature, arrested hundreds unlawfully and introduced a “new normal” in the Maldives – full dictatorship”.
Those arrested during the emergency included opposition parliamentarians, journalists and a former police chief.
Some 141 were detained on Friday alone when thousands of opposition supporters defied the emergency and staged a protest in the Maldives’ congested capital. Most have since been released.
The opposition accuse Yameen, who assumed power in 2013 following a disputed election, of abuses of power and siphoning millions of dollars from state coffers, allegations he has denied.
During his tenure, nearly all opposition leaders have been jailed or forced into exile. That includes the leaders of the coalition that brought him to power, two of his former vice presidents, as well as a former defence minister.
