Former Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim, who had been serving his jail sentence from home since April 2016, has been transferred to the prison in Maafushi island.  

Officers with the Maldives Correctional Service had taken Nazim into custody and escorted him to the prison on Wednesday.

On April 4th last year, Nazim was moved to house-arrest citing maintainence work at the ‘special protection unit’ in Asseyri Jail, in Himmafushi island. 

Sheikh Imran Abdulla, leader of the opposition Adhaalath Party, who had also been held at said unit was transferred to house arrest at the time. 

RaajjeMV has received credible information that Nazim is now held in the same cell occupied by Ibrahim Rasheed, a former state employee serving a 10-year sentence for statutory rape. 

Rasheed had been transferred to Asseyri, which is low-security in comparison to the prison in Maafushi, ahead of the former minister’s arrival expressly to make space for Nazim. 

Although correctional services had confirmed that the maintanence work for Asseyri is ongoing, their media official refused to comment on the condition or circumstances of Nazim's reincarceration. 

Nazim was tried and sentenced for possession of dangerous weapons after a late-night raid into his home resulted in officers discovering a pistol, three bullets, and a magazine. Officers pulled said items out of a black bag that Nazim had denied was his. 

Critics of the charges against Nazim, which includes the United Nations as well, have said that officers had not followed the procedures stipulated in police regulations – they had neither videotaped the search, nor provided a list of the items seized. 

The United Nation’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had released its opinion on the trial, which noted several discrepancies in the court proceedings leading up to the sentence. 

This includes restriction of opportunities to fully put forth a defence, and how prosecution had failed to prove that the firearm belonged to him beyond reasonable doubt. 

The Maldivian government responded by maintaining that the trials were fair, the sentence was justified and by ‘assuring’ the United Nations that Nazim was not a ‘political rival or threat’ to President Abdulla Yameen, or any other senior members of government.