Complaint filed against the judge who acquitted Muizzu in 2023
It follows a former police commissioner's claim at an opposition rally that MVR 800,000 was paid to the judge — an allegation that remains unproven.
Former police commissioner Hussain Waheed has filed a complaint with the Judicial Service Commission against Judge Sofwath Habeeb, who acquitted then-Malé mayor Mohamed Muizzu in the Noomadi false-testimony case in May 2023, the Maldives Independent reported on Friday.
The complaint rests on an allegation Waheed himself made at a People's National Front rally: that Muizzu's lawyer told him MVR 800,000 had been paid to the judge. The claim is unproven, and no charge has been brought against the judge.
Waheed's filing argues the allegation requires investigation to uphold judicial integrity — that whether the claim is true or false, a payment allegation against a sitting judge, made publicly and attributed to a named party, is precisely what the oversight body exists to examine.
The Noomadi case — in which the property developer's chairman alleged false testimony by Muizzu, then a minister — shadowed the president's 2023 campaign, and its acquittal has been contested political ground ever since. The complaint now places that acquittal before the judicial oversight process for the first time.
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