Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe pardoned eight Tamil prisoners.
Colombo:
Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday pardoned eight Tamil prisoners after spending more than 10 years in jail for their alleged links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
A Presidential release said the pardon granted under Article 34 of the Constitution came as a result of the intervention of Tamil MPs.
Of the eight prisoners, 3 were convicted for the attempted assassination of former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Kumaratunga, who was president between 1994 and 2005, had consented to his pardon, it said.
Two of the pardoners have agreed to withdraw their action filed in the Court of Appeals.
Three of the convicts had spent 22 of their 30-year prison terms and two had spent 14 years in prison during their 5-year sentence, while another prisoner was sentenced to 14 years despite serving 11 years.
The statement said one prisoner had spent 14 years in prison for a sentence of 5 years and the other had completed 14 years in prison, although the sentence was limited to 11 years.
Tamil political parties and rights groups have been pressing for the release of Tamil prisoners with suspected links to LTTE activities.
He has been detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) for a long time and the pre-trial period takes a long time due to inordinate delays in the legal system.
There is heavy international pressure on Sri Lanka to repeal the PTA. In 2021 the European Parliament adopted a resolution suspending the EU’s preferred tax concessions for Sri Lankan exports until the PTA is repealed.
The government has assured the EU that the PTA will not be used to detain people.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) conducted a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland for nearly 30 years before its collapse in the island nation’s northern and eastern provinces following the 2009 assassination of its supreme leader Velupillai Prabhakaran by the Sri Lankan military.
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