Thursday
19th Dec 2024
Dhivehi Edition
Suspects in the 2017 murder of blogger Yameen Rasheed.
Suspects in the 2017 murder of blogger and activist, Yameen Rasheed, say that they had been waterboarded by the Maldives Police Service.
In the hearing held yesterday, Ismail Rasheed; one of the defendants; claimed that Corrections Officers had entered his prison cell in Maafushi Prison and had proceeded to torture him.
In addition, Ahmed Yameen, the attorney for Haisham; another one of the defendants; claimed that his client had been taken into a Police vehicle and beaten severely by Police officers. Zihan, another of the defendants, said that he had been taken away on a speedboat only to be beaten and waterboarded.
Waterboarding came to the public eye after it had been put to commonly used by American soldiers in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps. The practice has been described by the United Nations as torture.
Waterboarding is performed by placing a towel on the face of the victim as they lie on their back, often inclined at 10 to 20 degrees. The torturer will pour a large amount of water onto the victim’s face which will trigger their gag reflexes and simulate the sensation of drowning. Continuous waterboarding can lead to death.
Such inhumane practices are illegal by Maldivian law.
Ismail Rasheed claimed that the Police had detained him in a room in Shaheed Hussain Adam building. He said that he had to spend several hours in front of a wall, and had been made to sleep in a sleeping bag.
Torturing suspects until they confess to crimes is a common practice in Maldivian law enforcement. The separation of Maldives Police Service from the military has reduced such cases after the new Constitution came into effect.