SRI LANKA: Panadura North Police fabricate charges against a man, who is later tortured by Kalutara prison guards

Dear friends, 

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a man was taken to court by the police and remanded for 18 days on tenuous grounds, with limited and fabricated evidence. The case is one of many received by the AHRC that illustrates gross misconduct, both by officers who wish to boost their arrest figures and by judges too lazy to challenge them. The victim suffered beatings and humiliation and was denied adequate medical treatment in jail, while his family struggled to produce the excessive bail sum. 

CASE DETAILS: 

Shantha Prasad Fernando is a 53-year-old father of two and runs his own grocery store; at one time he held a head position in the Civil Defense Committee of the Panadura North Police Station. 

On 26 November 2008 Fernando’s house was searched by officers, who opened the single bottle of arrack (local liquor) in his cupboard that he kept for personal use, and shared it around; they then took the half-empty bottle with them to use as evidence. Fernando was taken into custody and charged with selling liquor without a license, which he denied. He was released the next day and told to present himself at court. 

At the Panadura Magistrate Court on 4 December Fernando was charged with selling one dram of Extra Special Arrack to Constable Weerasinghe (69760) without a permit: case number 83180. Another officer (Sub-inspector Indra Perera) told the court that Fernando had a history of selling arrack, though his only evidence was the half-empty bottle. (Illegal vendors in Sri Lanka often sell small quantities of alcohol from a main bottle). 

Fernando pleaded not guilty to the charge and his lawyer informed the court that the charge had been fabricated by the officers involved. 

However accepting the scant evidence, the court ordered Fernando to be remanded for 14 days. He was held in Kalutara Prison, from where he reported various kinds of maltreatment: he was strip-searched and humiliated while naked, was beaten with a pole by various guards, not given medical attention when he needed it and slept in a room packed with about 90 other inmates. 

On 18 December in court, the Panadura North police took back their groundless accusation of Fernando’s criminal history yet bail was set at extremely high Rs. 75,000 (US$653) cash (bail for murder cases have been set at Rs. 30,000) plus two surety bails of Rs. 100,000 (US$870) each. Due to the bureaucratic delays and the Fernando family’s struggle to find the bail money, it took five more days for him to be released. 

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: 

This case is not atypical in Sri Lanka, where random arrests and charges are used to top up the quota of corrupt or incompetent police officers. This situation is not improving. In 2005 the then-Chief Justice Sarath Silva observed that: 

‘The problem is in respect of statutory offences. It appears that respective police stations cover up their lapses in investigating complaints of victims of offenses by filling up statistics of detection of statutory offences. This leads to the process of collection of causes which the petitioners have graphically described, and which is borne out of the schedule of prosecutions produced by the OIC himself.’ (SC (FR) 298/2005) 

This is boosted by an award system for successful arrests and raids by police, by the bribes that often accompany them, and by the members of the judiciary who play along. When the accused refuses to simply plead guilty and pay the fine, disgruntled judges can order heavy bail conditions on them despite the lack of evidence against them, and send them into remand. 

Arbitrary arrests are often followed by torture and maltreatment in prison, which naturally takes a long-term toll on the victim and his or her family. But these incidents also hurt society in the long run by undermining civilian respect for the law and law enforcement agencies. Arbitrary arrest and detention violates Article 13 (1) and (2) of the country’s constitution as well as Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the state has ratified. 

Fernando has complained to the Judicial Service Commission, the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission (HRC), the Chairman of the National Police Commission, the Inspector General of Police and the Senior Superintendent of Police Panadura on 30 December 2008. The HRC inquiry is still pending.

SUGGESTED ACTION: 

Please send letters to the authorities listed below condemning the conduct of the Panadura North Police and officials at Kalutara Prison. Please call for an immediate investigation and for compensation to be provided to the victim and his family, and recommend that a statewide review of all places of detention take place. 

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER