to detain him. In March 2013, he was arrested on the charges of abuse of the office but was released a day later. Numerous stops and starts to his trial followed. In February 2015, Nasheed was arrested again and ordered to stand on trial for his decision to arrest Abdulla Mohamed in 2012 while he was the president. On 13 March 2015, Nasheed was sentenced to thirteen years in Maafushi Prison for abducting Abdulla Mohamed. He was charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act of Maldives. The three-judge bench unanimously found him guilty of ordering the arrest of Abdulla Mohamed in January 2012, when he held the office of the president. The ruling came four days after Nasheed's lawyers quit in protest against what they called was a biased trial aimed at destroying his political career. He was originally cleared of the charge, but a few days later, the prosecutor general had him re-charged and arrested under tough anti-terror laws. The court rejected an objection from Nasheed's lawyers that two of the judges were not suitable to hear the case because they had testified against Nasheed at a police inquiry on the judge's arrest. The court also dismissed four witnesses produced by Nasheed's lawyers before they even testified, saying they were not strong enough witnesses. Nasheed had earlier been charged with abuse of power but prosecutors last month filed more serious charges under the country's terrorism law. The trial was completed after 10 hearings over 23 days. Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Director Richard Bennett said: "Amnesty International condemns the conviction of Mohamed Nasheed to 13 years in jail by judges who were state witnesses during an earlier investigation of this case. This trial has been flawed from start to finish, and the conviction is unsound." On 16 January 2016, Nasheed, following foreign pressure, was granted permission to leave for the UK by the Maldivian Government to undergo a spinal surgery. According to a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nasheed "was granted permission under the condition to serve the remainder of the sentence upon return to the Maldives after surgery". While in London, Nasheed, with the support of lawyer Amal Clooney, has vocally drawn attention to the Maldives' democratic shortcomings. The former president requested an additional 60-day leave extension that was temporarily rejected by the Maldivian authorities. Nasheed contended that a state-owned company once led by Maldives President Abdulla Yameen sold nearly