The report of the committee appointed to investigate the violent unrest at the Negombo Prison has been presented to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Justice and National Integration Minister Harshana Nanayakkara told Parliament on Thursday.
The minister said the clash, which took place on 5 July, killed 22 inmates and 10 prison officers. A further 106 inmates and 21 officers were injured.
Compensation and pensions
Compensation has already been paid to the families of the prison officers who died in the incident, Mr. Nanayakkara said.
He told the House that a presidential committee has been appointed to consider measures going beyond what the Public Administration Circular provides for. That committee is to take decisions on compensation, pension payments and loans obtained by the officers who were killed.
The same committee will also assess the condition and level of disability of officers injured in the clash and recommend appropriate measures, the minister said.
Background
The Negombo Prison clash was the deadliest incident in Sri Lanka’s prison system in years and triggered a criminal investigation, a review of prison security and the relocation of large numbers of inmates to other facilities. The Criminal Investigation Department told the Negombo Magistrate’s Court that 271 bullet shells were recovered from the prison premises, and the officer who opened fire during the clash was temporarily transferred to Pallekele Prison while the probe continued.
The minister’s figures give a combined death toll of 32. Earlier reporting in the days immediately after the clash put the toll at 28, a figure that reflected the count available at the time rather than the final tally set out in Parliament.
Sri Lanka’s prison system holds around 40,000 people against a designed capacity of about 11,000, with roughly 30,000 of those held on remand. Overcrowding and the circulation of narcotics inside prisons have been repeatedly cited as underlying pressures, and further disturbances have since been reported at Colombo’s Magazine Prison and at Kuruwita Prison.
