By IANS,
New Delhi : The Maldivian human rights panel has said that there was no assassination threat to former president Mohamed Nasheed in February this year when he was ousted from power, contradicting his claims.
It also noted that Nasheed’s actions leading to the transfer of power Feb 6 and 7 this year were in violation of the Maldivian Constitution and there had been a complete breakdown of chain of command over the nation’s police and defence forces.
In its report submitted to the Commission of National Inquiry (CNI), set up by present President Mohamed Waheed to go into the incidents of February when he replaced Nasheed, the Maldivian Human Rights Commission (HRC) opined that its investigation “did not show that there were any attempts made to assassinate” the former president.
The report was accessed by IANS.
The HRC was empowered by the Maldivian parliament to go into the alleged rights abuses during the entire process of transfer of power in February this year. It was mandated to probe the incidents that took place prior to the public resignation of Nasheed Feb 7.
“This investigation did not show that there were any attempts made to assassinate President Mohamed Nasheed during the time he spent in the Maldivian National Defence Force headquarters on Feb 7,” the findings of the HRC said.
Nasheed had announced publicly Feb 7 that he was resigning as president, following months of unrest in the archipelago nation and mutiny by a section of the police and the defence forces in the aftermath of the arrest of a senior judge in January this year.
After the power transfer to Waheed, the former president, who also heads the Maldivian Democratic Party, visited countries such as the US and India, where he claimed the power transfer was a coup at gun point and that he faced a threat to his life when he was in the defence forces headquarters.
Though the HRC’s report was submitted to the CNI in May this year, its findings have been made public only this week.
The CNI is all set to submit its own report on the events leading to Nasheed’s ouster shortly and President Waheed is scheduled to make an announcement on the report Thursday.
The HRC also concluded that while Nasheed was in the defence forces headquarters, the members of Special Protection Group, with live firearms, protected him, and remained loyal to him.
The HRC was mandated to probe the violence between supporters of the then opposition and the MDP government Feb 6 and 7 at various places in Maldives and the allegations of life threat to Nasheed while he was inside the defence headquarters.