Name: Abdulla Alexander

Age: 25

The first time Abdulla Alexander (25) had to face the Maldivian justice system was when he was 12 years old. He was arrested in March 1992 for riding a motorcycle without a license. At the police station at first he was questioned in Dhivehi. When he told the officer that he did not understand any Dhivehi another officer, Maumoon Hameed, questioned him in English. Abdulla Alexander had left the Maldives for the Netherlands when he was very young with his mother when she married a Dutch citizen and decided to move to the Netherlands with him. Alexander has both Maldivian and Dutch citizenship. The officer asked for his name, age and his address and asked him to wait outside the interrogation room. Later that day he was allowed to go home.

The next day he was picked up by two representatives of the Ministry of Home Affairs and taken to an office building around 2 pm . He did not know where he was or why he was there. When he questioned others waiting in the same room, he found out that he was in the company of convicts waiting to be transferred to jail. When he questioned the authorities he found out that he was also being transferred to jail although his case had not been heard by a judge.

Among his cell mates in Gamaadhoo jail were people who were convicted for drug related crimes, burglary, child molestation. He spent five months in Gamaadhoo jail before he escaped while on a medical trip to Male’.

During those five months he was punished three times for disobedience. When he was put into prison he asked and begged the authorities many times to give him non-spicy food as he was not used to the spicy food. When the prison authorities did not listen to him, he decided not to eat anything at all. Upon this the authorities made him sign a statement saying that the prison authorities were not responsible for any harm that was caused by him refusing to eat. When he signed the statement, they cuffed his hands behind his back and kept him in solitary confinement for a week.

After four days of high fever without any medical attention despite various requests Abdulla Alexander threatened the guard who brought him food saying that he could not bring any food into the cell before taking him out first. As a result of this protest he was taken out of the cell, his hands cuffed behind his back, and put in solitary confinement for five days. The cuffs were removed only to allow him to eat. He did not receive any medical attention.

The third instance of solitary confinement was when he pounded on the cell door for not getting any medication for a headache despite his repeated requests. This time, six guards opened the cell door and ordered him to come out. When he came out his hands were cuffed behind his back and he was ordered to walk towards a coconut palm. On the way he was beaten by the guards with the stem of coconut palm leaves. At the coconut palm his hands were cuffed behind the tree and he was left for 18 hours.

The second time he was arrested was in January 1993 when he was questioned in connection with a burglary. As soon as he was inside the police station about seven or eight security officers started swearing at him and asked him where the money was. After asking a few times Lance Corporal Adam Ibrahim, who was behind him, boxed his ears. According to Abdulla Alexander, when he boxed his ears, he flung his arms in an unconscious reaction and accidentally caught one of the guards slightly. Following this all the officers beat him and picked him up and cuffed his hands when he fell on the floor. They took him upstairs and sat him down with his hands cuffed behind his back till the investigation team arrived. The team consisted of 16 officers and was headed by an officer named Athif.

Inside the interrogation room Abdulla Alexander was ordered to stand near a table while Athif sat on a chair in front of him and the others sat around behind him. According to Abdulla Alexander, there were three batons and a three foot long wooden beam. They asked him where the money was a few times and when he replied that he did not know and that he could not admit to a crime he had not commited, the officers got up and shut the windows, drew the curtains and turned the lights off. In the darkness they beat him up for about 30 minutes. When they turned the lights back on Abdulla Alexander was lying on the floor in severe pain and with a badly bleeding mouth. When he could not move, one of the officers picked him up and sat him down on a chair. Abdulla Alexander said that then Athif decided to go for his tea break leaving two officers to guard him.

These two officers then cuffed his hands in front of him and fitted the wooden beam behind his knees so that the beam was wedged between his calf and thigh. They then forced him to sit, balancing on his toes and ordered him to keep his arms stretched out at shoulder level and to keep his heels off the ground. Every time he fell he was beaten and forced back into this position. The two guards tortured him in this manner for two hours until the others came back from their tea break.

Again the interrogating officers asked him where the money was and Abdulla Alexander said that he did not know. At this they started beating him again and said that the torture would only stop when he admitted to the burglary. However, the beating stopped soon as Abdulla Alexander’s nose and mouth started to bleed very heavily. Two officers then picked him up and put him on a stretcher and took him to the police doctor, Dr. Mohamed Ahmed. On the orders of the doctor, he was then taken to the Emergency Department of the hospital in Male’. The doctor who attended to the injuries at the hospital did not believe Abdulla Alexander when he told him how he received these injuries. After two days in hospital, during which time he could not talk to anybody because of the police presence, the security authorities discharged him and took him to Dhoonidhoo Detention Centre.

At Dhoonidhoo Detention Centre he was put in solitary confinement with his hands and legs cuffed. He spent a month in solitary confinement out of a total of three months and fifteen days that he spent in Dhoonidhoo Detention Centre that time.

He was then transferred to Gamaadhoo jail and put into a cell with nineteen others. After nearly three months he was taken to Male’ and released without any charge when the authorities released a number of prisoners following an incident that involved the death of a female prisoner.

Abdulla Alexander was arrested again in April 1994 accused of being involved in a street fight. After keeping him in the Prison’s Welfare section for seven days, the security authorities transferred him to Gaamaadhoo prison. When he complained about the bad prison conditions for a month, in particular when he kept asking for a mattress and a pillow to sleep on instead of the plywood board, he was punished for disobedience. Abdulla Alexander and five of his cell mates were taken out of the cell and handcuffed to coconut palms behind their backs. They were kept like this for seven days before being put into solitary confinement cells. While cuffed to the coconut palms, they were allowed to go to the toilet once every twenty four hours. After two months in solitary confinement he was transferred to his old cell and to house arrest after another four months. During the house arrest he was detained in the police station for violating the house arrest order. He was released after various petitions from him and his family to the prison authorities.

When he turned 16 in 1996, the authorities summoned him to court to pass sentence on his previous cases as they could not sentence him before because he was under sixteen. For the case in 1992, he received three months banishment for riding the motor cycle without a license and three months banishment for disobeying the orders of the state. For the street fighting case of 1994 he received four months banishment for fighting on the streets, six months banishment for violating the house arrest order and three months banishment for disobeying the orders of the state. In total Abdulla Alexander was sentenced for 19 months banishment in February 1996.

With seven days left of his nineteen month sentence, he was granted a presidential pardon. When he refused the pardon his sentence was extended for another three months banishment.

Abdulla Alexander was arrested again in March 1998, suspected of vandalizing president Gayoom’s car. He was kept in the police welfare cell in the police headquarters in Male’ for five days and was transferred to Gaamaadhoo jail. In addition to the vandalism case, the state charged him for the burglary case of 1993, although he had been told then that he would not be charged due to lack of evidence. He was given a sentence of 16 years and five months imprisonment for vandalising the president’s car, although according to Abdulla Alexander, he was completely innocent and there was no evidence connecting him to the crime.

Two months into his sentence in Gaamaadhoo jail, the inmates set fire to the prison in protest of the severe over-crowding and other abuses in the prison. In the confusion, Abdulla Alexander and 16 others tried to escape from prison on a small boat. They were caught by the coast guard the following morning and brought back to Himmafushi island, the island where Gaamadhoo jail is situated. Once inside the prison compound, the eight men of the group were handcuffed with their backs against coconut palms. While they were handcuffed to the coconut palms, they were beaten with batons and kicked with heavy boots by the prison guards. After three days of being cuffed to the coconut palm, Abdulla Alexander was taken with nine others to Dhoonidhoo Detention Centre.

Among those who were taken to Dhoonidhoo Detention Centre with Abdulla Ahmed were Ahmed Ali and Ahmed Naeem (see above for details of their cases). On the way to Dhoonidhoo he was made to lie face down on the deck of the boat with his hands cuffed behind his back. When the boat reached Dhoonidhoo island he was thrown on to the beach and ordered to run to a line of chairs a few metres away.

A short while later they were each given a 1.5l bottle of water as the ration for 24 hours followed by dinner soon after. According to Abdulla Alexander this was a small bowl of rice infested with ants.

With the change of duty an officer named Amir took over. He questioned them about the fire in Gaamadhoo and when they denied setting fire to the prison, he started beating them with his baton. Abdulla Alexander said that Amir beat them for three hours, up to the end of his shift. The two officers who took the next two shifts, Mansoor and Niyaz respectively, also beat them through their shifts. After nine days and nights on the chair and being beaten almost continuously Abdulla Alexander signed the confession statement written by the interrogation officer, claiming to have been involved in setting fire to the prison. Abdulla Alexander said that at the end of the interrogation his knuckles, toes and elbows were bleeding and that he did not have any strength to walk.

When he signed the confession statement he was taken back to Gaamaadhoo. According to Abdulla Alexander the situation regarding torture got worse soon after when Captain Adam Mohamed (Fusfaru) took charge of the prison. Soon after Captain Adam Mohamed finished his round of visiting the cells five National Security Service officers came and took Abdulla Alexander out of his cell. When a cell mate, Ibrahim Mausoom, asked the officers why they were taking him, he was also taken out.  When they were out of the cell they commanded the two to run as fast as they could to the prison gate. When they reached the gate the officers ordered them to run towards the National Security Service mess room. When they arrived at the mess room there were about eight people sitting at a table. One of them ordered them to sit on a chair while another brought an electric hair trimmer and shaved his head as short as he could with the trimmer. Then Sergeant Jaufar, who was standing there, poured kerosene on two pieces of cloth and blindfolded the two prisoners with the kerosene soaked cloth. He then cuffed their hands behind their backs and ordered them to run. According to Abdulla Alexander, as soon as he started running he ran into a coconut palm and had to stop because of the pain. When he stopped he was beaten with PVC pipes and ordered to run again. At nightfall he was allowed to stop. The officers then removed the blindfold and cuffed his hands in front.

Soon afterwards at dinner, National Security Service Private Saeed put a lot of food on Abdulla Alexander’s plate and ordered him to finish the plate within a certain time. Private Saeed also told him that if he vomited he would have to eat his vomit. Once he finished his plate, his hands were cuffed behind his back again and ordered to run 30 rounds around a large water tank. Soon after he started running Abdulla Alexander started to vomit. When he vomited he was given permission to run to a nearby water tap and drink water. As soon as he drank water from the tap he started to vomit again. The National Security Service members tortured him in this manner till 2.00 am .

At two in the morning they took him to a coconut palm near the beach and cuffed his hands behind the coconut palm and urinated on him. Among those who urinated on Abdulla Alexander were Farish Thoha and Sergeant “Gaabe”. After urinating on him the members of the National Security Service poured a bucket of sewage on him followed by condensed milk and sugar and left him there till 7 o’clock in the morning. Then they removed the handcuffs and gave him a “roshi” (flat thin bread) and some lentil curry for breakfast. As soon as he finished breakfast they cuffed his hands in front and made him do push-ups. They then ordered him to do side rolls and fight his cell mate Mausoom. They were beaten by National Security Service members when they refused to hit each other.

Abdulla Alexander said that around 1 o’clock that afternoon, Captain Adam Mohamed (Fusfaru) and members of the Quick Reaction Team came and sat behind a table and watched them being tortured. After watching for some time, Captain Adam Mohamed gave a four feet aluminium tube each to two female National Security Service members and commanded them to torture Abdulla Alexander and Ibrahim Mausoom. One female member came towards Abdulla Alexander and asked him his name, address and why he was sentenced for imprisonment. She also asked what he had been doing on the night when Gaamaadhoo prison was set on fire by the inmates. When he told her that he set out to sea with eighteen others in order to save themselves, she started beating him with the aluminium tube. While he was being questioned he was doing push-ups. The officer then kicked his hands with her boots, cutting his hands badly. When he begged her to stop the torture and said that he had been tortured since the afternoon of the previous day, she told him that he could have five minutes rest if he did ten rounds around the water tank with her sitting on his back. When he supported himself with his elbows and knees, she sat astride and hit his bottom as one would hit a horse to make it run. When they were out of sight of the other members of the National Security Service, Abdulla Alexander showed her his elbows, knees and fists and begged her to stop the torture. Then she asked him to stand and asked him whether he got aroused when he saw her and ordered him to run to Captain Adam Mohamed (Fusfaru), do ten push-ups in front of him and ask his permission to date her. When he did this one of the National Security Service people near Captain Adam Mohamed said “look at this shameless guy, he is trying to date my girl even when he is sentenced to jail for life” and hit his face very hard three times. They then commanded him to go back to the female member of the National Security Service.

According to Abdulla Alexander, the two female members of the National Security Service group, Corporal Suweda and Private Shehenaaz, tortured them for hours till they had to leave the prison compound. Abdulla Alexander and Ibrahim Mausoom were taken back to their cells when the National Security Service group left.

After spending four months in the burnt down Gaamaadhoo prison he was transferred to Maafushi prison. According to Abdulla Alexander as the National Security Service was in charge of running Maafushi prison it had more of a military style. He noted that there were only two toilets for a prison cell where 104 prisoners were kept. One very strict rule was that everybody had to go to sleep at 10.00 pm . Abdulla Alexander said that one night when somebody whistled after 10 o’clock in the night, the duty officer came and questioned everyone to find out who it was. When the duty officer could not find out from the inmates, he called the officer-in-charge. When the officer-in-charge asked the inmates they all said that they did not know. He then made everybody in the cell kneel down in front of the cell fence. Soon after about 20 National Security Service personnel arrived with handcuffs. They then opened the cell and ordered everyone to come out of the cell and started handcuffing the prisoners in lines of ten. Around midnight the prisoners were taken out of the compound and ordered to run fast. The prisoners were beaten by the National Security Service personnel while they were running. Then they were ordered to go into the sea up to their necks. When they were in the water they were ordered to keep the cuffs out of water in order to prevent them from corroding. They were allowed back into their cell at dawn.

According to Abdulla Alexander it was very common to punish the whole group for one person’s misbehaviour. Such punishments occurred almost twice weekly. He said that often they were taken out to the “range” and tortured in various ways such as being hung by the cuffs. During punishment they were not allowed showers nor to brush their teeth.

In September 2003 Abdulla Alexander was brought to Male’ and put under house arrest while he got medical attention at the hospital in Male’. While he was in Male’ he took part in the riots following the killing of Evan Naseem in Maafushi prison. The security forces arrested him at his home. The arresting officers blindfolded and tied his hands behind his backs with a bedsheet before throwing him into an armoured personnel carrier. He was taken to the headquarters of the National Security Service and forced to lie face down on the floor till they took him to the National Security Service training camp in Girifushi island.

The state charged Abdulla Alexander under the Terrorism Act for taking part in the riot and sentenced him to 11 years imprisonment on the 3^rd of October 2005 .

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