Maldivian former president Mohamed Nasheed held

Male  : Maldivian opposition leader and former president Mohamed Nasheed was arrested Monday following a court order, a party official said.

According to the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP), Nasheed was arrested and taken away by police while participating in a political rally on an island, Xinhua reported.

Nasheed is the MDP’s presidential candidate.

“He was arrested in a very brutal manner by the police from the building where he was temporarily staying on the Faresmathoda atoll. Three of our party legislators accompanied him with the police,” the party spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor said.

A local court Sunday issued a warrant to arrest Nasheed over a case filed by the family of Chief Criminal Judge Abdulla Mohamed, who was arrested and detained when Nasheed was the country’s president.

The MDP alleged that the court order was politically motivated to invalidate Nasheed’s candidacy for the elections scheduled to be held next year and to deliberately disrupt the party’s presidential campaign.

The Maldives government, however, denied any political hand in the court order and said it was purely based on a case filed by an individual.

In August, a panel which probed the Feb 6 and 7 events this year, when then Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed was ousted from power, held that it was not a coup.

It also concluded that the transfer of power to then vice president Mohamed Waheed was “legal and constitutional” and that Nasheed’s resignation was voluntary without any coercion or intimidation.