The Colombo High Court on Monday on March 4 sentenced to death a Sub Inspector of Police and a Constable who were attached to the Peliyagoda Police in connection with the assault to death of a suspect using a pole, while the suspect was in custody at the Peliyagoda Police Station for stealing a cordless phone in 2005.

In addition to the sentence, both accused were sentenced to 12 years’ rigorous imprisonment and ordered to pay compensation of Rs. 2 million to the deceased’s daughter and a fine of Rs. 130,000 by the Colombo High Court.

The Attorney General had filed the case against four accused and the third and fourth accused were yesterday acquitted and released from the case by the Colombo High Court as there was insufficient evidence to prove the charges against them.

The convicted accused are Sub Inspector Kamburugamuwa Lokuarachchilage Chaminda Kumara and Constable Sudu Applulage Anura Weerawardena, who were attached to Peliyagoda Police.

Both accused were found guilty of the first, fourth and seventh charges in the indictment, and they were sentenced to death over the seventh charge.

They were convicted for the charges of unlawful Police detention, brutal torture and murder of 52-year-old suspect Abeysinghe alias ‘Ranji’ who was arrested on suspicious of stealing a cordless phone.

Following a lengthy trial, Colombo High Court Judge Navaratne Marasinghe observed that the prosecution was able to prove the charges against the other two accused beyond reasonable doubt.

Before sentencing the accused, the defence sought from the Court to give their clients lenient sentences.

State Counsel Chaturi Wijesuriya, appearing for the Attorney General, made a submission that these are Police officers who were representing a major institution that is committed to maintaining peace, and that they committed this crime while on duty. And in such a situation, the crime they committed cannot be considered a minor crime in any way.

Delivering the judgement in open Court, Colombo High Court Judge Marasinghe observed the seriousness of the charges against the accused and paid special attention to the post mortem report of the victim. According to the Judicial Medical Officer’s report, the deceased had 15 wounds on the surface of the body and 12 critical internal wounds.

Also, the JMO specifically mentioned that a very limited number of post mortems have been conducted by him with such injuries, so far, and some of these severe injuries have been recorded as severe enough to kill a person. According to the report, it has been shown that some bones of the deceased were broken during the assault.

The Colombo High Court Judge emphasized that according to the power of this Court, the accused should definitely be given the death penalty for the seventh charge, and they cannot be given lenient punishments when considering the other charges too.The Colombo High Court Judge pointed out that because of them, the entire Police department has been indelibly scarred, and this crime committed when they were on duty as Police officers can never be taken for granted.

After considering all the evidence that transpired during the trial, the Colombo High Court Judge sentenced both accused to death for the seventh charge.

In addition to the death sentence, the accused were sentenced to two years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 15,000 each for the first charge and 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 50,000 each for the second charge, and they were also ordered to pay a compensation of Rs. 1million each to the deceased’s daughter.

If they were unable to pay the imposed fines and the compensation, the Colombo High Court Judge ordered that the accused be sentenced to six months’ lenient imprisonment for the first charge, one year lenient imprisonment for the second charge, and two years’ lenient imprisonment for their failure in paying compensation.The Attorney General had filed indictments against accused Sub Inspector of Police Kamburugamuwa Loku Arachchilage Chaminda Kumara, Constable Sudu Appulage Anura Weerawardhana, Peliyagoda Police Crime Branch Administrative Officer, Chief Inspector of Police Lawus Dasanayake and Police Sergeant Mohamed Ameen Ajees for brutally torturing 52- year old Abeysinghe alias ‘Ranji’ and assaulting him to death while he was in custody at the Peliyagoda Police Station.In July 2005, the deceased was handed over to the Peliyagoda Police Station by a Police officer attached to the Police fingerprint division, while he was working in the residence of that Police officer, on suspicion of allegedly stealing a cordless phone from the officer’s house.