A court in the Maldives has sentenced two Supreme Court justices to more than 19 months in prison on charges of influencing lower court decisions.

The Criminal Court on Thursday sentenced Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and Justice Ali Hameed to one year, seven months and six days each in prison. On Tuesday, Saeed was sentenced to nearly five months in a separate case.

Both judges were arrested in February under a state of emergency during a political crisis which followed a Supreme Court decision to release and retry a number of President Yameen Abdul Gayoom's political opponents. The opponents had been jailed after trials with alleged due process violations.

Maldives embraced multiparty democracy in 2008 after decades of autocratic rule but has since lost much of its democratic gains.