brand logo

No consensus on Mahara/Welikada prisoners’ fate

02 Jul 2021

By Buddhika Samaraweera   No agreement has been reached regarding the demands of the inmates of the Mahara and Welikada Prisons who recently staged protests demanding that their death sentence be commuted to a term of life imprisonment, according to the Prisons Department. The inmates have since voluntarily called off the protests, the Department noted. Following the release of former MP Duminda Silva (who was jailed in September 2016 after the Colombo High Court found him and several others guilty of the murder of former MP Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra) under a Presidential pardon, the inmates of the Welikada and Mahara Prisons launched a hunger strike on 24 June, demanding that their death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. They called off the protest on 30 June. However, when contacted by The Morning, a senior official of the Prisons Department said that the authorities, including the Department, had decided not to pardon any prisoner who engaged in such protests in a manner that threatened the security of Prisons. He also said that several discussions had been held with the authorities and the prisoners who engaged in the said protests. However, when queried as to whether the inmates who engaged in the protests would be given some kind of pardon, he said: “We initially announced that no prisoner who acts in a manner that threatens the prisons security, would be pardoned; and that applies to these prisoners too. They called off the protest on their own.” The Prison Reforms and Prisoners Rehabilitation State Ministry also stated recently that it had been decided to not grant any amnesty to the protesting inmates of the Mahara and Welikada Prisons. Speaking to The Morning, the Prison Reforms and Prisoners Rehabilitation State Minister Lohan E. Ratwatte said that no pardon would be granted to any prisoner who violates the laws pertaining to prison inmates. “If they act in a way that threatens the security of the Prisons, they will not be pardoned at all. Even if they were to be pardoned, they won't be (anymore),” he noted.  


More News..