Shumba’s hearing, scheduled after a year is cancelled

Hearing in the trial of social media activist Ahmed Ashraf (Shumba Gong) – accused of threatening Progressive Party of Maldives council member Zahid Rameez – scheduled after a break of one year has been cancelled.

Criminal Court was scheduled to hear witness testimony during the hearing scheduled for 1 pm, this Monday.

The hearing was cancelled after Shumba was transported to Male’ City.

State’s witnesses in the case against Shumba are anonymous.

PPM council member Zahid was summoned for questioning during a previous hearing, during which Zahid said that Shumba threatened to kill him through Viber, Twitter and text messages sent through multiple phone numbers.

Zahid said that Shumba took screenshots of the texts, shared it to a PPM Viber group and started talking about it.

Zahid said Shumba also sent pictures of murder victims including Dr. Afrasheem Ali to members of his family.

Shumba is accused of sending the threatening messages in October, 2015.