High Court orders MVR 650,000 awarded to imprisoned PNC activist Shaheeb to be withheld pending appeal

The High Court has ordered the withholding of MVR 650,000 that the Civil Court had ruled must be paid to PNC activist Shaheeb Ibrahim, who is currently serving a prison sentence for drug trafficking.

Shaheeb was sentenced to life imprisonment after 130 kg of drugs were seized from a fishing boat in Hulhumale' in 2020. The Civil Court had ordered that MVR 650,000 be paid to him in a case he filed against Ahmed Ashfag of Asseyri, Sh. Foakaidhoo. Ashfag appealed the ruling to the High Court, prompting the order to withhold the amount.

In its order issued Sunday, the High Court instructed that the money owed to Shaheeb be withheld, but noted that there was no legal basis to postpone the execution of the Civil Court judgment.

The case was originally filed in 2019, with Shaheeb seeking the return of MVR 650,000 he had given to Ashfag. He also sought a monthly fine of MVR 65,000 for the delay in repayment, totalling MVR 2 million. However, Judge Fayyaz Shathir’s ruling did not include the fine, and instead ordered Ashfag to pay MVR 650,000 within three months, a deadline that expired in February.

The Civil Court issued the ruling while Shaheeb was serving a 50‑year sentence. In addition to the prison term, he was ordered last September to pay MVR 10 million to the state.