Jailed ex-leader leaves for surgery in Britain

Jailed former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed left for the UK on Thursday following a stopover in Sri Lanka after the islands' government granted him prison leave for urgent surgery, his party said.

Nasheed, whose conviction last March on terror-related charges has been widely criticized, left the Maldives on Monday after resolving a last-minute legal dispute with the government over his 30-day release for spinal cord surgery in the United Kingdom.

"He left Colombo early this morning," Maldivian Democratic Party spokesman Hamid Abdul Ghafoor said after a two-day stop in the Sri Lankan capital. "He was under strict instructions from his lawyers not to speak to journalists while in Colombo."