Self-exiled former president Mohamed Nasheed's lawyers on Sunday urged the country's top court to review its verdict after jailed former vice president Ahmed Adheeb Abdul Ghafoor's testimony.
Nasheed was jailed on terror charges after he was convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison over the arbitrary detention of a sitting judge while he was president.
He now lives in self imposed exile in the UK after he was allowed to leave to Britain on medical leave in an internationally brokered deal in January last year.
Adheeb who was the tourism minister when Nasheed was sentenced, in a letter to the Supreme Court said the former president was sentenced to prison in an attempt to stop him from speaking out over the jailing of former defence minister Mohamed Nazim.
"I know who wrote the verdict on whose orders," Adheeb who is currently serving 33 years for multiple accounts of terrorism and graft said in the letter.
Adheeb said the first draft of the verdict would have handed Nasheed a suspended 10 year sentence but was later changed on the orders of someone highly influential.
He had also expressed his wish to testify that the verdict was influenced adding that he had enough evidence to back his allegations.
Shortly after Adheeb's letter was sent to the top court, Nasheed's legal team during a press conference said there was now more than enough cause for the court's to re-visit the verdict.
"The courts have the authority to re-visit past verdicts. So based on this information we urge the courts to review the verdict against Nasheed," lawyer Hisaan Hussain stressed.
Lawyer Hassan Latheef said the Supreme Court and the state have a responsibility to hear Adheeb's testimony expressing hope that justice would prevail.
Adheeb's latest tesimony comes weeks after he sent a letter to the country's top court expressing his wish to reveal the truth behind the hand gun found in former defence minister Nazim's residence.
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.
