Death penalty bill tabled: hanging as the only method, a seven-member panel and a ban on filming

This page sums up what eleven published sources reported. It is a record of what outlets said, not original reporting.

The bill was presented for the government by Guraidhoo MP Hanan Mohamed Rasheed.^{4, 5} The Maldives Independent says it has 51 sections and creates no new capital offences. It sets the conditions for passing a death sentence and the procedure for carrying one out.¹

• When a sentence can be passed. Only for an offence that a law already makes punishable by death, and only after the case has gone through both appeal courts to a final judgment. Courts must confirm the accused had a lawyer at every stage, or no death sentence can be passed.^{1, 2}
• The method. Hanging, carried out by the Maldives Correctional Service.^{1, 4, 5} The Standard Maldives reports the equipment and procedures must keep suffering to a minimum.⁵
• The panel. A seven-member panel would issue the execution order and review dates.¹ Sun Online lists its members as officers from the Correctional Service and the police, a prosecutor, a lawmaker, a doctor, a Supreme Court representative and a religious scholar from the Fatwa Council.³ MV+ reports the panel would have up to 30 days from its formation to set the date and time.⁴
• Postponements. An execution must be postponed for a pregnant convict until two years after the birth, or while a convict is nursing a child under two. It must also be postponed while a court case or review is pending, or if the convict is seriously ill, physically or mentally.^{1, 3, 5}
• Convicts' rights. The convict can seek a pardon or a lighter sentence, have a lawyer, meet family and make a final will.¹ Sun Online reports that the convict, family, lawyers and the victim's heirs must be told 72 hours ahead.³
• Secrecy. Executions would be closed to the public, and recording or sharing images or sound would be banned.^{1, 3, 5} The body would go to the family, or the state would arrange an Islamic burial.¹

The Maldives Independent reports the law would apply to people sentenced to death before it takes effect.¹

Sun Online reports that the Maldives has kept a de facto moratorium on executions since 1954, that the Muizzu government announced plans in 2023 to reinstate the penalty, as former president Abdulla Yameen's government had tried, and that in March the President said the Attorney General's Office was close to finishing a bill.³

Amendments to the Drugs Act that took effect on 6 March 2026 allow the death penalty for trafficking above set quantities. MV+ reports, from Right to Information records, that prosecutors have sought the death penalty against 17 people in 11 cases and life without parole for 94 more. All the capital cases are at an early stage and no death sentence has been handed down, it reports.⁷ Under that law a death sentence must be unanimously upheld by the full Supreme Court before it can be carried out, MV+ reports.⁷

At a press conference on 9 November, Muizzu said his government will carry out executions when the law requires, and that his actions will match his words, MV+ reports. He said previous governments used judicial independence as a "convenient excuse" to delay, and that no government had done more to protect the judiciary from interference.⁶

The Maldives Independent reports that he called it something no government had wanted to implement, said the Maldives is "a 100 per cent Islamic country", and cited the Quran on retaliation in kind. It reports he said he knew some would oppose it.¹

Ten local and international rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and the International Federation for Human Rights, urged the government in April to withdraw the plan and to repeal the Drugs Act provisions. They said it would breach the country's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and that UN experts say drug offences do not meet the threshold of the "most serious crimes".⁸

Yameen said in July that he had once backed the death penalty but now opposes it, because he says current judges lack impartiality. He said it is no longer part of his political platform.⁹

Former economic minister Fayyaz Ismail, who is seeking the MDP's presidential ticket, said on X that the President raised the death penalty to divert attention from the Ras Malé deal.¹⁰

In April, Homeland Security Minister Ali Ihusaan said the President is not using the death penalty to win public support, and that it would be carried out as the law dictates. He also said the government accepts that concerns raised about it are valid.¹¹

• The moratorium. Sun Online says it began in 1954. MV+ says in one report that it dates to 1953, when the last execution took place, and in another that there have been no executions since 1952. The Standard Maldives says the last recorded one was in the 1950s.^{3, 4, 5, 8}
• Victims' heirs. Sun Online says a death sentence may be issued only if all the victim's heirs agree at court. The Maldives Independent says decisions on retribution and pardon by the heirs follow sharia rules, and that an execution is put on hold if the heirs file a case.^{1, 3}

• When Parliament will vote on the bill. The Maldives Independent reports the President said the bills would pass before its recess.¹
• When any case could reach the stage of an execution order. The listed sources say no death sentence has been handed down under the Drugs Act.⁷
• What the regulations on equipment and procedure will say. The Maldives Independent says technical standards are left to regulations.¹