International legal team to represent jailed Maldivian leader

The opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) on Wednesday said that an international legal team would represent former President Mohamed Nasheed in his ongoing trial.

The team includes Jared Genser, who has represented clients such as Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Aung San Suu Kyi and Liu Xiaobo, Ben Emmerson QC, an expert in international human rights law who is currently the British judge on the Residual Mechanism of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Amal Clooney, an expert in international human rights law who has served as a senior advisor to Kofi Annan when he was the UN envoy to Syria, and as counsel to political prisoners Yulia Tymoshenko, former prime minister of Ukraine, and Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy. "I am very pleased to have such an extraordinary team agreed to take up my legal defense internationally,"said Nasheed in a statement released on Wednesday."I am determined to ensure the world understands the injustice of my detention and the broader suffering of the Maldivian people under President Abdulla Yameen," he added.

Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in prison last month after being found guilty of terrorism for ordering the arrest of a judge when he was in power in 2012.

His lawyers decided not appeal against his sentence because the court had not released all documents from the first hearing to prepare a case on time.

However, according to a recent report, Nasheed could still appeal against the 13-year terrorism conviction at the High Court despite the end of the 10-day appeal period. Endi