Shifaq Mufeed, Member of Parliament for Fuvammulah Central Constituency has said that former President Mohamed Nasheed had himself acknowledged that he was not ousted in a coup d’état. Shifaq Mufeed, formerly one of the most outspoken and prominent leaders of MDP, spent years with Nasheed before he left MDP to join the Progressive Party of the Maldives months ago. Speaking at a PPM rally held last night at Artificial Beach area, Shifaq said that Nasheed complained when arrangements to give him statutorily stipulated financial benefits and privileges for former presidents were delayed. Shifaq said that Nasheed has been taking them for months now. Carrying on his argument, Shifaq said that as these benefits are constitutionally prescribed only for presidents who leave office in accordance with the law, Nasheed’s acts of complaining for them, and then accepting them and using them implied an acknowledgement that he left office in a legal transition. “The Constitution says that protection and financial benefits and privileges should be provided for any president who steps down in accord with the law. There is a statute that expands the constitutional provision. President Nasheed complained on the basis of these legal provisions when he did not at first receive the protection and financial benefits and privileges. He sent lawyers. Then he started getting, taking and using them. What does this mean? What is he trying to make us believe? How can he say that he was ousted in coup, and still claim protection and benefits accorded by the law for presidents who step down in accord with the law? This shows us that Nasheed’s words and actions do not agree with each other, and it was then so as it is now so. By claiming for the protection and benefits constitutionally and statutorily accorded for former presidents who leave office in a legal manner, Nasheed has clearly acknowledged that his presidency ended not in a coup”, said Shifaq. In his address at PPM rally, Shifaq also spoke about Nasheed’s decision to “kidnap” the Chief Judge of the Criminal Court in front of his small, crying children, and keep him at a military training facility at Girifushi, without informing anyone, not even his family, about his whereabouts for more than 72 hours. Shifaq said that following the incident, he and other members of the MDP parliamentary group met President Nasheed. Shifaq said that MDP parliamentarians requested Nasheed to release Chief Judge Abdullah Mohammed, and that Nasheed rejected the request outright. “You were outside, calling for the release of Judge Abdullah”, said Shifas, referring to the protests staged by PPM following the arrest of Chief Judge Abdullah by the Maldivian military on the orders of President Nasheed. “Inside, we the members of MDP’s parliamentary group, met with President Nasheed, and literally begged him to release Judge Abdullah. We told him that he was taking a politically suicidal action. This is the advice we gave him. However, he simply refused to listen to us. He told us that he had no mind to change his policies”. Nasheed resigned after the Maldives Police Service, and later the Maldives National Defence Force, refused to carry out illegal orders, including an order to let MDP’s violent activists go to a confrontation with anti-government protests at artificial beach.