UN calls for release of former Maldives president

The Maldives sent its former president Mohamed Nasheed (pictured above) back to prison Sunday despite his controversial 13-year sentence being commuted to house arrest last month.

The re-arrest sparked clashes between his supporters and police and prison officials as they removed him from his home in the capital Male and took him to the high-security prison island of Maafushi Sunday night.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein “expressed his deep concern to the government of the Maldives,” his spokesman said Tuesday, adding that his re-arrest constituted "a serious setback.”

It was not immediately clear why Nasheed was being jailed again, and there was no comment from the government.

Nasheed was ousted in contested circumstances in 2012 for ordering the arrest of a judge accused of corruption. The case has drawn widespread international criticism and highlighted political instability in a country popular with wealthy tourists.

Re-arrest shows 'complete disregard for the rule of law'

Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said in a statement Monday that the former leader's transfer back to jail “is in clear breach of the Maldives' constitution, which provides no provision for reversing a commutation of a sentence.”

The MDP said it had filed a complaint Monday with the criminal court challenging his transfer from house arrest.

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who is representing the former president, said the move showed "complete disregard for the rule of law.”

"After subjecting Nasheed to an unfair trial and outrageous conviction, this capricious administration has now reversed its decision on house arrest," the MDP quoted her as saying.

"They have the audacity to claim that there was no commutation of Nasheed's sentence even though we have official documents and public statements confirming the opposite."

Conviction was 'an attempt to silence' former president

Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in jail in March after a court convicted him under tough anti-terror laws.

The charges related to the arrest of a judge accused of corruption while Nasheed was president.

He was ousted in February 2012, and supporters of the former leader claim his conviction was a politically motivated attempt to silence him. Nasheed's sentence was formally commuted to house arrest on July 19.

US Secretary of State John Kerry warned in May that democracy in the Maldives was being threatened and said Nasheed had been "imprisoned without due process."

The U.N. described Nasheed's jailing as "vastly unfair" and his lawyers resigned before the end of his trial after saying it was aimed at destroying his career.

Nasheed, a climate change activist who was also imprisoned during the three-decade rule of strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was elected president in 2008.

He then rose to international prominence by hosting a cabinet meeting underwater to draw attention to the dangers facing the islands' existence from climate change and rising sea levels.

mh/jil (AFP, AP, Reuters)