Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney attended a court hearing Wednesday in the Maldives where state prosecutors have done a U-turn to appeal the conviction of former president Mohamed Nasheed.
Clooney was at the Maldivian High Court along with Nasheed who is serving a 13-year jail term after a rushed trial that found him guilty of "terrorism."
The charge relates to the ordering of the arrest of an allegedly corrupt judge when Nasheed was still president in 2012.
Clooney is part of Nasheed's international legal team and is visiting the archipelago to press for his immediate release after the UN said his trial earlier this year was seriously flawed.
Faced with mounting international criticism, Maldivian authorities tried to distance themselves from the controversial judgement saying that the state will take the unusual step of appealing his conviction.
Nasheed's lawyers said a pre-trial hearing Wednesday was inconclusive and the court had deferred a ruling on whether it will allow the state to appeal.
"The prosecutor general cannot file the appeal under (the name of) Mohamed Nasheed," the private Haveeru news website quoted Nasheed as saying in court. "I believe that this fact will not be lost on you honourable judges."
Meanwhile, Clooney's Washington-based co-counsel Jared Genser joined her Wednesday.
Clooney on Monday described the human rights situation in the Indian Ocean archipelago as "deteriorating day by day." On Wednesday, she had a one-hour meeting with Maldivian Attorney General Mohamed Anil, but neither side released contents of their talks.
After her first meeting with Nasheed at the Maafushi prison on Tuesday, Clooney said Nasheed was in remarkably good spirits.
"He wanted me to convey to the people of Maldives that they should remain hopeful that things will improve and he is pleased that I'll be attending meetings on his behalf with the government this week," she said.
Nasheed was the country's first democratically elected leader who ruled from 2008 to February 2012 when he was forced to resign following a mutiny by police and troops.
Nasheed's 13-year jail sentence was commuted to house arrest in July, but last month police took him back to prison in a surprise move that drew fresh criticism from the UN and the US.
The political fallout has damaged the island's reputation as a honeymoon paradise, and brought crowds of protesters onto the streets of Male.
Clooney, a respected human rights lawyer who shot to international stardom when she married actor George Clooney, was named in April as part of Nasheed's international legal team along with Genser -- who has previously represented Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi -- and Ben Emmerson, a judge on war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.