The Criminal Court has canceled a hearing scheduled for today in the Aarah case in which former President Abdullah Yameen is facing two serious charges.
The State had accused Yameen of taking a bribe of USD 1 million for the transaction between Yoosuf Naeem and Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation to lease the island to the former.
The state's charge sheet accused Yameen of laundering the money acquired from the deal.
The Court had completed the Preliminary hearings of the case and was set to begin the trial today.
But in a message to the media, the Criminal Court said that the hearing had been canceled today as presiding judge Ahmed Shakeel was ill.
The hearing was canceled a day after the Criminal Court had said that it would be live streaming the hearings from now on.
Yameen's legal team had asked the court on several occasions to allow live streaming of the court proceedings but had been denied until now.
Presiding Judge Ahmed Shakeel had said then that it was difficult to accommodate such a request due to the lack of manpower at the court but had remained hopeful that the Court would be able to grant the request once the initial hearing was over.
Yesterday, the Judge had changed his decision on the live stream and had said that the stream would be made available on the Court's Youtube channel.
