No Pardon for Jailed Maldives Ex-President

Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon told Reuters on Wednesday that the Maldives would welcome an appeal by its jailed former president against his 13-year sentence, but he was found guilty of terrorism and cannot expect to be pardoned. Mohamed Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected president, was ousted in 2012 in what his supporters call a coup, and then convicted of terrorism in March this year for ordering the arrest of a judge. United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has said the trial was marked by "flagrant irregularities." The Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago of fewer than 400,000 people, is increasingly polarized between Nasheed's supporters and those backing President Abdulla Yameen.