Cherie v Mrs Clooney: It's the catfight of the century. One lawyer's charging a fortune to represent a despot. The other, for no pay, is battling to free a jailed hero. No prizes for guessing who's on which side! 

• Cherie runs international legal firm Omnia Strategy, at London's Hyde Park 
• Amal Clooney flew to the Maldives to free imprisoned Mohamed Nasheed
• Democratically-elected president Nasheed deposed 'at gunpoint' in 2012
• Amnesty International has called his 13-year jail term a 'travesty of justice' 
• Omnia Strategy is against Ms Clooney, backing the Maldivian government

By Andrew Malone for the Daily Mail

Published: 16:33 EST, 18 September 2015 | Updated: 19:05 EST, 18 September 2015

On what was billed as a private holiday to Sri Lanka last month, Cherie Blair couldn’t resist the chance to make some extra cash between relaxing at the pool and doing yoga sessions at her five-star hotel, set in 58 acres of lush gardens, and ponds covered in water lilies.

She and husband Tony — who was also on this delightful family trip along with son Euan, 31, and daughter-in-law Suzanne — could of course have afforded to take it easy.

After all, the former prime minister is estimated to be worth anything between £50million and £100million, while such is the success of his wife’s business that staff costs alone are £2million.

Scroll down for video 

Head-to-head: Amal Clooney (left) and Cherie Blair (right) are battling it out in the court room over the case of jailed Maldivian ex-president Mohamed Nasheed. Amnesty International called his 2012 imprisonment a 'travesty of justice' 

But making money is in the Blair blood. So as well as attending lavish private dinners with her husband and powerful political figures on that Sri Lankan trip, Cherie was touting for business on behalf of Omnia Strategy, the international legal firm she runs from a seventh-floor office with no name plate overlooking London’s Hyde Park.

While her husband mingled with the country’s politicians and gave a lecture in ‘reconciliation’, boasting about his role in the Northern Ireland peace process, Cherie was reported to have offered her services to the government as a (presumably highly paid) adviser.

To add to this whirl of high-powered deal-making, she was also invited to speak at the Bar Association of Sri Lanka’s annual conference, a shindig attended by Sri Lankan grandees at another five-star hotel.

Cherie talked convincingly and apparently passionately about the need for those involved in making money to balance their business enterprises with human rights.

They should go hand in hand, she gravely told her audience. ‘You are only a mobile phone call away from a terrible reputation,’ she warned, which is why it was so important to have good business ethics. 

Her concern for human rights is all very well, but it might come as a surprise to the former president of a nearby island state, also in the Indian Ocean.

Mohamed Nasheed was the first democratically elected president of the Maldives when he took office in 2008. His term ended abruptly four years later when he was deposed — at gunpoint, he claims — by a stooge of the dictator he had replaced, a dictator who had run a one-party state for 30 years.

Concern: Amal Clooney has flown to the Maldives to fight for his release pro bono (without asking for payment)

Fight for justice: Amnesty International calls Nasheed's imprisonment a ‘travesty of justice’, adding that it took place after a ‘politically motivated trial’ where he was deprived of proper legal representation and any defence witnesses

Earlier this year, Nasheed was jailed for 13 years on terrorism charges. Amnesty International calls his imprisonment a ‘travesty of justice’, adding that it took place after a ‘politically motivated trial’ where he was deprived of proper legal representation and any defence witnesses.

Such is the international outrage over his treatment that no lesser human rights lawyer than Amal Clooney has flown to the Maldives to fight for his release pro bono (without asking for payment). 

The competition: Cherie Blair's London-based law firm Omnia Strategy is backing the Maldivian government in the case

And where does Cherie Blair fit in to all this? She — or her Omnia Strategy legal firm — is pitted against Mrs Clooney, representing the Maldivian government.

Yet in contrast to Amal Clooney — and perhaps inevitably for a woman who was described last week by the Guardian as so insecure she has a ‘need’ to make lots of money — Omnia is charging handsomely for its services.

The prospect of Clooney vs Blair is certainly tantalising. And it not only raises concerns about Cherie Blair’s highly questionable choice of clients in return for lucrative fees, it also exposes the brutal reality of the archipelago, famed for its beaches and celebrity holidaymakers.

Earlier this month, the Mail reported how Cherie was representing Rwandan spy chief Karenzi Karake, who had been arrested in London as an alleged war criminal.

On a legal loophole, she helped Karake win his battle against extradition to Spain to face charges that he arranged massacres in Rwanda 21 years ago in which three Spanish aid workers died.

In addition, Karake was accused of organising the assassination of Lincolnshire solicitor Graham Turnbull, who had given up his job to teach in Africa. Omnia Strategy has accepted contracts from the oppressive Middle Eastern state of Bahrain and the autocratic regime in Kazakhstan.

So it should not surprise us that it is now taking money from the government of the Maldives — a country long accused of human rights abuses.

The Maldives is, in reality, a violent, dangerous place — particularly for those involved in politics.

That fact was underlined when Mrs Clooney’s local lawyer was stabbed in the head earlier this month in Male, the capital, by two unknown assailants who fled on motorbikes. There have been claims that the ‘hit’ was orchestrated by the secret police.

The country was ruled with an iron fist for three decades by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, a former teacher in Islamic studies. But under pressure from the West and mass protests against his rule, he was forced to finally allow the elections that brought Nasheed to power in 2008.

Up until then, state-organised repression and torture were the order of the day. With snatch squads seizing political dissidents and thousands of opponents to the regime imprisoned without trial, the Maldives were branded a ‘tropical human rights hell’.

As soon as he first took office, Gayoom appointed members of his family to key jobs. One brother was leader of the security forces, and various other brothers and half-brothers were appointed to run key ministries such as the police and media.

On the ground: Amal Clooney leaves the Maafushi Prison, near the Maldivian capital of Male. The Maldives is, in reality, a violent, dangerous place — particularly for those involved in politics

Controversial: Earlier this month, the Mail reported how Cherie was representing Rwandan spy chief Karenzi Karake, who had been arrested in London as an alleged war criminal

While tolerating no dissent and jailing and torturing those opposed to his dictatorship, Gayoom’s presidency also saw the country soar in popularity as a tourist destination, with wealthy guests flown out by private aircraft or boats to luxury resorts among the 1,200 islands.

Many of the country’s 320,000 people remained in abject poverty as Gayoom and his coterie of family members amassed vast personal wealth, with the dictator splashing out on a £5 million luxury yacht, 11 speedboats and 55 cars for his immediate family — all from government coffers.

But a horrific shooting spree by government forces against political enemies incarcerated at Maafushi jail — the same grim establishment where Nasheed is being held — prompted an outcry and the beginning of the end of Gayoom’s rule.

The subsequent uprising — along with international pressure — eventually brought Nasheed to power in 2008.

Centre of the case: Former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed, who was jailed in 2012. He was the country's first democratically-elected president,  but was deposed 'at gunpoint' four years later 

For decades he had been a thorn in the side of Gayoom’s dictatorship of the Maldives — a British protectorate from 1887 until independence in 1965. He was first arrested after accusing the government in a satirical magazine of rigging the 1989 general election.

Imprisoned repeatedly since then — on trumped up charges, he says — he was once held in solitary confinement for 18 months, and tortured twice.

In total, he was arrested and jailed at least 20 times over 15 years.

Nasheed became a famous prisoner of conscience and formed a political party opposing the brutality of the one-party state.

Yet once in power, his reign was short-lived. In 2012, military figures from the old regime turned up at the president’s office and, he says, used guns to persuade him to resign.

He claims that some 50 soldiers then forced him to go to the state television studios and announce he was standing down.

Nasheed was succeeded by Mrs Blair’s latest client — President Abdulla Yameen, who happens to be a former cabinet minister in the previous dictatorship.

Repeatedly linked to drug gangs operating from the Maldives, who also operate as political thugs on behalf of the ruling party, President Yameen has ensured that the old military and terror apparatus remain in place. Which perhaps explains why Nasheed is once again behind bars.

The Maldivian Democratic Party, which Nasheed set up in 2003, is unequivocal in its condemnation of Cherie Blair’s support of the autocratic government, describing her firm as full of ‘unethical and profiteering’ people employed to ‘help wash the blood’ off the president’s hands.

‘Omnia Strategy is the very worst kind of mercenary outfit,’ says Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, an opposition spokesman.

‘It is taking possibly millions of dollars in exchange for helping a dictatorship keep a democracy hero in jail. 

Amal Clooney boards a boat as she leaves the Maafushi Prison in the Maldives. The Maldivian Democratic Party, which Nasheed set up in 2003, is unequivocal in its condemnation of Cherie Blair’s support of the autocratic government, describing her firm as full of ‘unethical and profiteering’ people employed to ‘help wash the blood’ off the president’s hands

Celebrity husband: Amal Clooney, together with husband George in Tokyo. Mrs Clooney has filed a case to the United Nations saying her client’s detention is a breach of international law

‘Blair and Cadman (an Omnia lawyer) should be utterly ashamed of themselves. They are no friends of the Maldives.’

Meanwhile, Mrs Clooney has filed a case to the United Nations saying her client’s detention is a breach of international law. 

She says the charges were concocted by the Maldivian government as a punishment for his criticism of the regime, not to mention the chance to put him behind bars and crush him as a political threat.

Last week, amid a flurry of activity in Male, Mrs Clooney — wearing a £1,340 red dress by Dolce & Gabbana — held talks with Nasheed in the maximum security prison on a remote island atoll where he is incarcerated.

She branded Nasheed’s imprisonment a ‘mockery of justice’ and last week furiously claimed that her talks with Nasheed had been bugged by the Maldivian government.

For its part, Cherie’s camp, now also ensconced in the Maldives, has no qualms about the questionable credentials of their latest client. A senior member of Cherie’s team told me that the constitution of the Maldives means its courts are independent of politics, and that the allegations against the former president were of the ‘utmost seriousness’.

Human rights: Last week, amid a flurry of activity in Male, Mrs Clooney held talks with Nasheed in the maximum security prison on a remote island atoll where he is incarcerated

‘Our work with the government of Maldives is focused on important institutional and legislative reform that will improve transparency and accountability across all arms of government,’ said Toby Cadman, the partner in Omnia who is in the Maldives leading the case.

He dismissed suggestions Omnia is taking ‘blood money’ from the Maldivian government, but refused to discuss the firm’s fee on grounds of confidentiality.

He added that it was Mrs Clooney’s client who was attempting to make political capital from the case.

‘The reality of the position is that former president Nasheed was accused of committing serious offences that undermine the public’s confidence in both the judicial system and the office of the president.

‘In any modern democracy, such an offence should be treated with the utmost seriousness.’

That is not the view of prominent U.S. politicians or the European Union, who have called for the immediate release of the jailed former freedom fighter.

But Cherie Blair and her highly paid advisors appear determined that is not going to happen.

Comments (808)

Share what you think

• Newest
• Oldest
• Best rated
• Worst rated

 View all

The comments below have not been moderated.

 View all

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

Add your comment

Enter your comment

By posting your comment you agree to our house rules.

Submit Comment Clear

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now