The inmate who died during last weekend’s unrest at Mahara Prison lost an excessive amount of blood, a post-mortem examination has found, as a lawyers’ organisation called on the Justice Minister to resign over the incident.
The examination was carried out on Monday (3) by a special team of judicial medical officers at the morgue of the Ragama Teaching Hospital, Ada Derana reported. It determined the cause of death to be excessive blood loss. The remains were handed over to the inmate’s relatives in Wattala on Monday afternoon, and investigations are continuing.
The inmate died and six others were injured after unrest broke out at the prison on Saturday, August 1, leading to a fire and a curfew in three grama niladhari divisions of the Ragama police area.
Free Lawyers calls for resignation
The Free Lawyers organisation issued a statement condemning Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara and Justice Ministry Secretary Ayesha Jinasena over what it called a failure to control and prevent the unrest, Hiru News reported.
Citing information released by the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Prisoners, the statement said a death had occurred inside the prison and that prison officers were reported to have fired at people who tried to help injured inmates.
The organisation said the recurrence of a fatal incident less than a month after the Negombo prison clash that killed close to 30 people demonstrated a collapse of control within the prison system. It accused the minister of evading accountability after a no-confidence motion against him was defeated in Parliament by the government’s majority.
The statement also criticised the minister for taking a constitutional amendment to raise the retirement age of senior judges to Cabinet without prior consultation with the Bar Association of Sri Lanka or the Judicial Service Association, while conditions inside the prisons remained volatile. That proposal has drawn objections in recent weeks from the Bar Association, the Chief Prelates and church bodies.
Free Lawyers called for an observation team from the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka to be sent to Mahara Prison immediately, for the minister to accept personal and political responsibility for both the Negombo and Mahara incidents and resign, for an independent and transparent investigation into the Mahara incident, and for the proposed constitutional amendment on judges’ retirement age to be withdrawn.
