The ousted ex-president of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed, who claims he was forced from office in a coup, said he expected to be arrested on Thursday as protests and violence escalated in the holiday paradise. Nasheed, the Indian Ocean country’s first democratically elected president, told AFP at his modest family home in the capital that a court order had been issued for his detention and he anticipated being sent to jail. “They have issued a warrant to arrest me now and said that I will be the first former president to spend the rest of his life in jail,” he said. “I hope the international community will take note and do something right now.”
While dozens of supporters surrounded the home, elsewhere in the country the police and army struggled to take control after a night described by a presidential aide as “anarchy”. “What happened is utterly disgraceful and it is the saddest day in the modern history of Maldives,” newly appointed Home Minister Mohammed Jamil Ahmed told AFP. Maldives police commissioner Abdulla Riyas said 18 police stations had been attacked on outlying islands in the archipelago, while numerous court and government buildings had been looted and torched. Police had received the order for Nasheed’s arrest, but they “had not yet carried it out”, Riyas told AFP, while refusing to explain the reasons for the delay.
