A key witness delivered a major blow to the prosecution late Monday after backtracking on an admission that former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's lawmaker son Faris Maumoon had bribed him to back an opposition led move to unseat the parliament Speaker.
The Dhiggaru lawmaker on trial charged with bribing fellow lawmakers to back an opposition led no-confidence motion against parliament Speaker Abdulla Maseeh.
The prosecution had named an unidentified lawmaker to testify against Faris but during the hearing on Monday, the lawmaker admitted that he had lied in his police statement.
The MP in his secret testimony insisted that he had signed the petition against the Speaker out of his respect to Gayoom and had not been offered anything in return.
The lawmaker also admitted that he had lied to the police out of spite as the prosecution's second witness Ahmed Shafiu who was arrested with the defendant after he took a photograph of him signing the petition.
The hostile witness would be a major blow to the prosecution hopes of a conviction as the judge had rejected Shafiu and two key pieces of evidence as they were not named before the trial.
Faris meanwhile had named incumbent president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom among the 62 witnesses in his defence.
The lawmaker named his uncle president Yameen along with Attorney General Mohamed Anil, chief prosecutor Aishath Bisham, acting police chief Abdulla Nawaz and the now jailed former police chief Ahmed Areef.
Faris had also named the 44 lawmakers who had signed the censure motion against the speaker as witnesses in his defence.
The judge is expected to make a decision on the defence witnesses during the next hearing.
Faris has been at the forefront of the ongoing government crackdown on the opposition after he spearheaded a move to unseat the parliament speaker last year. Former president Gayoom's eldest son had spent six months in pre-trial detention after he was charged with bribing fellow lawmakers to back the opposition led censure motion against the speaker.
The MP however was released before the Supreme Court's order on February 1 to release nine political opponents that had included the lawmaker moments before his uncle declared a state of emergency.
Less than two days after he was released, police again took him into custody accusing him of plotting to overthrow the government.
Faris' latest arrest came after police had accused and arrested his father of bribing the now jailed top court judges to issue the order to release jailed political leaders in a bid to overthrow the government.
As the state of emergency expired, president Yameen had got the parliament contentiously extend it by another 30 days.
Less than a day after the arrest of the two judges, the remaining three judges rescinded its ruling to release the political leaders referring to the concerns raised by president Yameen in the letters he had sent to the chief justice hours before state of emergency was declared.
The accusations against Gayoom included bribing lawmakers and judges to influence their authority while the deposed ruling party leader has also been accused of creating discord within the security forces to back the overthrow of his half-brother's government.
The two top court judges are accused of accepting bribes to influence Supreme Court rulings, abuse of power and blocking the functioning of the entire justice system.
In addition to Nasheed, the other top political leaders named in the now rescinded order included Jumhoory Party (JP) leader Gasim Ibrahim, religiously conservative Adhaalath Party (AP) leader Sheikh Imran Abdulla, former defence minister Mohamed Nazim, former vice president Ahmed Adheeb Abdul Ghafoor and Gayoom's lawmaker son Faris Maumoon.
Former prosecutor general Muhthaz Muhsin, magistrate Ahmed Nihan and Adheeb's uncle Hamid Ismail make up the rest of the list.
