The High Court has ordered that the MVR 650,000 awarded to Shaheeb Ibrahim, a PNC activist currently imprisoned for drug trafficking, be withheld pending an appeal. Shaheeb was sentenced to life in prison after 130 kg of drugs were seized from a fishing boat in Hulhumale' in 2020. The Civil Court had previously ordered that he be paid MVR 650,000 in a case he filed against Ahmed Ashfag of Asseyri, Sh. Foakaidhoo. Ashfag appealed this decision to the High Court, leading to the order to hold the funds.

In its ruling issued on Sunday, the High Court instructed that the amount owed to Shaheeb be kept on hold, but also stated that there was no legal ground to delay executing the Civil Court’s judgment. 

The case was initiated in 2019, with Shaheeb seeking the return of MVR 650,000 he had previously given to Ashfag. He also requested a monthly fine of MVR 65,000 for the delay in repayment, amounting to a total of MVR 2 million. However, Judge Fayyaz Shathir’s decision did not include the fine and ordered Ashfag to pay the MVR 650,000 within three months, a deadline that expired in February.

The Civil Court's ruling was issued while Shaheeb was serving a 50-year prison sentence. Additionally, last September, he was ordered to pay MVR 10 million to the state.