Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in prison in March over the arbitrary arrest of chief criminal judge Abdulla Mohamed during his presidency. Maldives’ international partners including the EU, US, UK and the UN had said his rushed trial was seriously flawed. The Maldives is facing increased international pressure over Nasheed’s imprisonment, following a UN panel ruling in the former president’s favour. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention made its ruling in the report made public earlier this month after Nasheed filed the case claiming that his detention was unlawful. The five-member independent panel called for his immediate release. The government has on several occasions rejected the UN panel’s ruling. It has repeatedly said that it would only follow the country’s constitution, domestic laws and verdicts issued by local courts. Foreign minister Dhunya Maumoon told reporters in Sri Lankan capital Colombo on Thursday that a number of contentious matters have been decided in favour of Nasheed in the absence of any credible evidence being put to the government. “It is on this basis that the government is now seeking reconsideration of the matter by the Working Group,” Dhunya, who arrived in Sri Lanka Tuesday to brief her fellow diplomats and foreign media about the recent political developments in the Maldives, said. The minister once again downplayed the UN panel’s ruling saying that it was a non-binding opinion. “However, the government is clear that the decision and the remedy proposed by the Working Group should properly be considered by the appropriate authority, namely the Supreme Court of the Maldives,” Dhunya said. The Prosecutor General’s (PG) Office had last month asked for the Supreme Court's intervention after the High Court rejected the state initiated appeal of Nasheed's sentence. The state had initiated the appeal based on the “procedural irregularities” flagged by the defence during the trial. Nasheed had waived his right to appeal after claiming that the lower court had failed to provide trial records within the window for appeal. The Supreme Court, however, is yet to decide on the admissibility of the case.