08 General amnesty for Tamil prisoners by the President
According to the Article 34 of the Constitution, the President has granted amnesty to 08 Tamil prisoners in prison in accordance with the powers given to the President in relation to granting amnesty to a person convicted by a Sri Lankan court.
As a result of several discussions held by many Tamil Parliament members with the President, steps have been taken to release these prisoners and prior to that, on the intervention of the Ministry of Defense on the recommendation of the President, monitoring of information related to the prisoners was carried out.
This decision has been reached only after taking the opinion of the Minister of Justice and through him the Attorney General on the consent report regarding the release of the prisoners.
Attempt to kill Chandrika
Three of these Tamil prisoners were jailed on charges of attempting to assassinate former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. On the advice of the President, the President’s Secretary Saman Ekanayake has consulted the opinion of the former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and with his consent, the necessary initial steps for their release have been prepared.
According to this, steps have been taken to release 04 LTTE-related prisoners detained in the Colombo Magasin prison and they will be released in the future by reducing their sentence.
Two other Tamil prisoners linked to the LTTE will be freed after their appeals court cases were withdrawn and two more prisoners will be released under a presidential pardon in the near future.
Penalty periods
Three prisoners were sentenced to 30 years and served 22 years, one sentenced to 11 years and currently serving 14 years, and one sentenced to 10 years and serving 14 years. These include two serving 14 years for a 05-year sentence and one serving 11 years for a 19-year sentence.
