Former foreign minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed has forwarded the letter sent to the country's top court by jailed former vice president Ahmed Adheeb Abdul Ghafoor expressing his wish to reveal the truth behind the hand gun found former defence minister Mohamed Nazim's residence to the United Nations (UN).
Shaheed who now serves as the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief had forwarded the letter to UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights.
Nazim was sentenced to 11 years in prison after he was convicted of weapons possession after police found a hand gun in his residence. However, neither his DNA nor fingerprints was found on the weapon.
The Supreme Court however, upheld the verdict of the High Court despite DNA recovered from the pistol that matched Adheeb's DNA profile, who is currently serving 33 years for multiple accounts of terrorism and graft.
Nazim has argued that since his DNA was not found on the gun, there was enough room to cast doubt over his conviction continuing to claim that he was framed.
In the letter, Adheeb had reportedly claimed that he was aware of the "truth" behind the gun and was to reveal the perpetrators who orchestrated the whole affair.
UNWGAD in January had declared Nazim's imprisonment illegal calling for his immediate release.
The report noted that the government had failed to give a sufficient explanation to the Adheeb's fingerprints found on the weapon, pointing to the notion that it had in fact been planted.
UNWGAD also expressed concern over the lack of time provided to Nazim to prepare his defence, the limits placed defence witnesses and on his cross-examination of prosecution witnesses by the trial court and the High Court.
"Taking into account all the circumstances of the case, the Working Group considers that an adequate remedy would be to release Col. Nazim immediately and accord him an enforceable right to reparations, in accordance with international law," the report read.
The six months given to the government by the UN panel to provide it with information on action taken in follow-up to the panel's recommendations would expire at the end of this month.
