Criminal Court judges decided that some defense witness testimony in former President Abdulla Yameen's Vaavu Aarah trial lacked weight because of illogical claims, prosecutors told the High Court on Wednesday.
According to the prosecution, USD 1 million deposited to Yameen's account came from a stolen lease acquisition payment for Aarah. But Yameen insisted that it was from a currency exchange transaction and submitted witnesses to back up his alibi. But Judge Ahmed Shakeel, who presided over the trial, decided not to give weight to testimony from some of the witnesses.
Responding to counter arguments from the state on Yameen's point of appeal about the refusal to take the testimony into consideration, defence lawyers said the judge decided on his own that the testimony was manufactured despite no contradictions between defense witnesses.
In response, the state denied that the judge had arbitrarily disregarded the testimony. The judge considered illogical claims in the testimony more than contradictions between witnesses, the prosecutor said.
"In not giving weight to witness testimony, more than the contradictions in the testimony, the judge considered the witnesses saying they do not remember things other than what was favorable to President Yameen or saying they did not know, and because some of the claims cannot be believed by a reasonable person and conflicts with reason, the judge did state this in the trial report," the state prosecutor said.
The defense also failed to show how the lower court judge did not follow a High Court precedent as argued in the appeal, the prosecutor said, referring to the judgement in Abdulla Nazeef vs the Prosecutor General's (PG) office.
The prosecutor also noted a Supreme Court precedent for judges to rationally evaluate evidence and assess the quality and credibility of testimony. A book on Islamic Shariah's evidentiary rules by Justice Husnu Suood also stated that testimony could be considered false if there were illogical claims regardless of the number of witnesses who made the same claim, the prosecutor noted.
"The appellant is worried because the lower court judge evaluated evidence as a reasonable person," the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor also alleged efforts by witnesses to rectify illogical claims in testimony from two or three days ago.
"After weighing and assessing all of this, the lower court judge believed that it did not make sense. The lower court judge was not convinced by the [testimony] they're referring to," the prosecutor said.
Aarah case
According to the charges raised by the state, Vaavu Aarah was transferred to the tourism ministry on August 9, 2015. A company called 2G Pvt Ltd with a 99 percent stake owned by the co-defendant Yoosuf Naeem was created on August 13, 2015.
On September 8, 2015, 99 percent of shares in 2G Pvt Ltd were sold to LA Resorts Pvt Ltd.
When the MMPRC handed over Aarah to 2G on September 9, 2015, LA Resorts gave a check of USD 1 million to the MMPRC as the island’s lease acquisition cost and a check of USD 1 million to Yoosuf Naeem.
On September 13, 2015, when the money was deposited to Yoosuf Naeem’s account, a check for USD 1 million from the account was given to President Yameen on September 15, 2015. Two days later, the money was deposited to an account opened under Yameen’s name at the HSBC Bank, according to the prosecution.
Both Yameen and Yoosuf Naeem pleaded not guilty to the charges. The transaction between them was a sale of US dollars for Dhivehi Rufiyaa, they said, claiming it was unrelated to the leasing of Aarah and denying any act of corruption.
