Six Police Officers Sentenced To Death
Basil Fernando
Last week in the High Court of Badulla 05 police officers and a security officer were sentenced to death for causing the murder of Sadun Malinga a 17 year old young boy. The boy and four of his relatives had gone to the town for the purpose of some business when police suddenly arrested them beat them in public and thereafter arrested them and took them to the police station and further tortured them. As a result Sandun Malinga became seriously injured and the relatives who were with is tried to get the attention of the police to get medical care for the boy immediately. However the police ignored all such requests.
Next day the parents of the boy came to the police station and saw his condition, and again tried to get the attention of the police and also some higher up police officers in order to get some medical attention for Sandun Malinga . The police refused and instead, produced the five of them before a lady Magistrate.
When they were produced a lawyers as well as the victim himself tried to get the attention of the Magistrate to the condition which Sandun Malinga was and tried to get her to make an order to refer him for medical assistance. The Magistrate too ignored these requests and did not take any trouble to consider the condition of the young boy. She instead ordered all five of them to be remanded at the request of the police.
The next day morning Sandun Mlinga was with his brother and was suffering from a serious condition and even then prison authorities failed to provide immediate medical attention to the boy and in the morning the boy die d in his brother’s arms inside the police station.
It was for this that the the high court sentenced the officers to death.
The death sentence on the police officers did not receive much media attention. Sentencing of six, persons connected with the police station should have been a news that should have received serious attention of the Sri Lankan society as a whole and for that purpose the media should have highlighted this issue and created opportunity for discussion of the case, so that the meaning of this sentence would have been brought to the homes of people and also to all police officers throughout the country, so that it could have some beneficiary effects in the prevention of similar deaths in the future.
Arrests Without Justifiable Grounds
Among the matters that should have been discussed are first of all the issue of arrest without any justifiable ground. It has become a common feature throughout police stations in Sri Lanka to arrest without any substantial grounds justifying this arrest. There are many instances in which serious injustices have happened and in some in which even very serious injuries have been caused on the innocent persons, simply because the police take this liberty to arrest anybody if they so wish. And most persons arrested by them are even without slightest evidence to connect them to any crime.
One of the most glaring examples of a similar case was the case of Gerald Mervin Perera who in 1992, was arrested without any reason by a number of policemen acting under the instructions of a Superintendent of the police . He was assaulted severely, at the Wattala police station with the hope that he may be able to divulge some information regarding a triple murder. The injuries were caused were so much that it ultimately caused a kidney failure. His life was saved only by the intervention of his wife and some local politicians who facilitated him to go to a private hospital in which he remained in a comma for nearly two weeks.
The matter later came before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka headed by late Justice Mark Fernando who delivered a landmark judgment in this case. The Supreme Court found that there were no grounds to arrest Jerad Perera and even if they have arrested him he could have easily been released after a first few questions have been asked’ as the police would have discovered that this man knew nothing about any crime. The court went on to observe that even after injuring him the police failed to provide immediate medical care to Jerad Perera.
The Court came to the conclusion that the failure to provide medical care in such circumstances amounts to a violation of a fundamental the right to life. And the Court found that all the police officers have violated the basic right of the accused. In that case the court awarded exemplary compensation ordering the state to pay the full amount of medical costs which was over 900 000 rupees to the private hospital and also to pay a similar amount to Jerad Perera as compensation.
The matters that have not received adequate attention of the national police commission ,the IGP, and the other high ranking police officers in the police service of Sri Lanka, the Ministries of Justice and law and Order and also of the judiciary and the Attorney General’s Department are first of all the issue of arrest without substantial grounds for arresting a person. It is quite well known that in high profile cases which involved politicians who are known to the country, the criminal investigation division CID) takes a lot of precaution in order to have a thorough inquiry to satisfy themselves of the evidence available of an accused before taking the steps of arresting such an accused. However this is not the case at the police station level, where almost every police station arrested persons purely without any warrant or any justifiable grounds for arresting the person. This matter needs very careful consideration and instructions need to be issued either by way of legislation or by regulations in order to stop this practice immediately.
