Two minors convicted of participating in Ayyube

The Juvenile Court has found two minors guilty of participating in the murder of Ali Hassan (Ayyube) of Samandharuge, Dh. Kudahuvadhoo.Ayyube was found remorselessly stabbed to death in Kudahuvadhoo in January 2012.

Juvenile Court said that the two kids convicted of participating in the deliberate murder of Ayyube confessed to the crime during investigations as well as in Court.

The Court has declined the request for the names of the two minors.

Meanwhile, the minor who was charged with deliberate murder in relation to Ayyube’s case was found not guilty. A Juvenile Court official said that the child had denied the claims against him in Court as well as during investigations. When requested to present evidence, the state had said that no evidence existed.

The official said that the child who was found not guilty has now turned 18, but was 17 when the murder took place.

One of two minors who were convicted of the crime is 17, while the other will turn 17 on 27 December.

Nine out of ten of Ayyube’s heirs have said that they want the death penalty for the people who are convicted of this crime. Juvenile Court said that one of Ayyube’s heirs is a minor aged 10, from whom the Court could thus not obtain a statement.

Juvenile Court’s ruling on the two convicts stated that the sentence for the crime as per Islamic Sharia is the death sentence, and that the crime involves certain rights of the heirs of Ayyube.

The Court said that because one of the heirs is a minor whose age does not qualify him to give a statement on the matter, a decision about his right in relation to Ayyube’s murder must be postponed until he matures and becomes an adult.

The Court thus ordered the two convicts to imprisonment until the heir who is a minor matures and attains the appropriate age.

The ruling also said that once the heir matures and becomes an adult, the case must be filed to Court again for a decision on his individual right.

The case filed to Court by the state against the three suspects said that the three kids, in cooperation with some other people, planned to murder Ayyube and followed him on Miskithu Magu in Kudahuvadhoo at around 7:00pm on 8 January 2012.

One of the three kids, with some other people, attacked Ayyube and took him to a vacant house called Hudhuali on the same road, stabbed him in several places on his body, and murdered him.

The state also said that one of the suspects, with some other people, handed over the items used for the murder to some people and the other two suspects, who subsequently threw some knives into the sea and buried some knives on the beach. They also burned the clothes they were wearing and the gloves and masks that were used in the murder in a fire that they lit up on the beach.