News Desk
MALE’ — A man accused of using Snapchat to obtain intimate images from multiple victims and then extorting them for money has walked free after both the Criminal Court and the High Court ruled that the charges against him did not meet the legal threshold required for conviction.
The accused, Favaaz Luthfee of S. Feydhoo, was alleged to have posed as a woman on Snapchat, built trust with victims, obtained explicit photographs and videos, and then used that material to blackmail them. Investigators say he extracted MVR 300,000 through the scheme, leaving multiple people exposed to the threat of having their private lives made public.
The Criminal Court threw out the case on the grounds that the prosecution had not produced sufficient evidence to establish that the blackmail was connected to a sexual offence, and that sending explicit images did not clearly fall within the definition of a sexual act under the relevant legislation. The High Court upheld that ruling. The majority of the bench found that Favaaz’s conduct did not constitute a sexual act as defined under the sexual offences law and that the legal elements required to sustain a blackmail conviction were therefore not present.
The decision was not unanimous. Judge Fathimath Farheeza noted in her dissenting opinion that Favaaz’s conduct showed clear sexual intent. The majority disagreed.
The case exposed a specific gap in the legal framework. The law as it stands does not clearly cover the use of intimate images as a tool of coercion unless the underlying act that produced those images can itself be classified as a sexual act under the statute. Digital blackmail of this kind, where the coercion is real and the harm is documented but the legal definition does not quite reach it, falls through the gap.
The case did not end entirely without consequences. When police searched Favaaz’s apartment, they found drugs and related evidence. A separate drug investigation involving a person associated with him is ongoing.
The acquittal has reopened a debate about whether Maldivian law is equipped to deal with technology-facilitated abuse. The conduct described in this case, targeting individuals online, extracting intimate material through deception and using it to extort money, is a well-documented pattern of harm. That it can result in no criminal conviction because a definitional element falls short is a problem the legislature has been slow to address.
