Court Orders Aadhthu News to Hand Over Laptop Passwords to Police

In the case of a documentary aired by Aadhthu newspaper in the latter part of last March, the Criminal Court ordered yesterday that passwords for devices taken from the office running the newspaper be handed over to the police. Aadhthu stated that the Criminal Court ordered the handing over of passwords for four MacBooks among the devices taken by the police. Accordingly, it was also ordered by the court that data extraction from these MacBooks should be conducted in the presence of an entity determined by the Maldives Media and Broadcasting Commission (MMBC), Aadhthu said. The organization stated that since the items are those that were inspected and approved as related to journalism, they are privileged under the law, and therefore, the Criminal Court's order includes measures to maintain the confidentiality of information extracted from these items and to take necessary precautions. In the case of the documentary brought by Aadhthu, the newspaper's belongings were taken by the police during the investigation on the evening of April 27 last month. At that time, the Criminal Court had already granted permission to obtain information from Aadhthu newspaper's digital devices. In the matter of content brought by Aadhthu newspaper last March, CEO Hussein Fiyaz Moosa and Managing Editor Hassan Mohamed were presented before the police and questioned. Their passports were also held at that time. Trials against Fiyaz and Hassan are currently ongoing. Two journalists of the newspaper, Liwan Ali Nasir and Muhammad Shuhzan, were also jailed in connection with this case.