13-year-old’s murder: Zihan requests to proceed the trial without a lawyer

Ibrahim Zihan, Bageechaage, N. Landhadhoo, who has been charged in connection to the 13-year-old boy who was found murdered and dumped in a suitcase in the Maldivian capital last June – has requested to proceed with his trial without the assistance of a lawyer.

A hearing of the case against Zihan was held this morning at the Criminal Court – in order to review his remand period. At the hearing, Zihan had requested to proceed without the assistance of a lawyer – and subsequently, the hearing went on as per his request.

Prior to this, the Court had ordered Zihan to be jailed pending outcome of trial. In reviewing this decision, the Court had decided in line with the previous order – for Zihan to be jailed pending outcome of trial.

Due to the nature of the case – this a closed-door trial.

Zihan is facing a total of 13 charges in connection to seven offenses. If the charges are proven in court – he is expected to face a 100-year long jail sentence.

The charges Zihan is facing are:

• One charge of voluntary homicide
• Five charges of unlawful sexual contact with a minor 
• One charge of drugging a minor in order to have sexual relations
• One charge of grooming a minor in order to have sexual relations
• One charge of unlawful restraint of a person
• One charge of abuse of a human corpse
• One charge of using a minor to commit a criminal offense

Meanwhile, the other suspect arrested in the case – a 17-year-old – is only facing murder charges.

The 13-year-old boy was reported missing by his family on June 20. The police were investigating the case as a possible kidnapping, when the Hulhumale' police received a report on the evening of June 21 of a child being tortured in the restricted area of Hulhumale' Phase II, prompting the police to search the area.

His body was found dumped in a suitcase in the lagoon northeast of Hulhumale’ Phase II at 02:38 am on June 22.

The young boy's body was sent to Trivandrum, India, for a postmortem two weeks later, on July 5.

His body was transported back to the Maldives and buried on July 12.