Jailed former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed today thanked the world leaders who helped secure his release for urgent surgery in Britain, after being granted temporary leave from his prison cell.
Nasheed, whose conviction last March on terror-related charges has been widely criticised, left the Maldives late yesterday for Sri Lanka, after a delay caused by a legal dispute with the honeymoon island nation's hardline government.
The opposition leader spent his first day of freedom since his imprisonment in a top hotel in the capital Colombo and is due to fly to Britain tomorrow.
"He is making calls to world leaders to thank them for their support in getting him released," his aide, Ahmed Naseem, told AFP.
"The Sri Lankan government has been extremely kind," Naseem said, referring to an internationally brokered deal to secure Nasheed's 30-day freedom.
Aides said Nasheed had decided against speaking to reporters in Colombo today, given the intense diplomacy involved in brokering the deal, and would only meet his doctors in Colombo before flying directly to London.
He had been due to leave the Maldives on Sunday after the government said he could travel for urgent spinal cord surgery under the deal brokered by diplomats from India, Sri Lanka and Britain.
But he refused a government request to leave a relative behind to act as a guarantor liable to prosecution if he failed to return to serve the rest of his 13-year sentence, leading to a tense back and forth over conditions.
