The Chilaw High Court has sentenced a businessman from Dehiwala, Mohammed Abdul Kader Mohammed Mujahir, to death after convicting him of possessing a stock of heroin, Hiru News reported on Thursday.
The arrest was made on 17 May 2017 in the Anawilundawa area of Chilaw by officers of the Chilaw Division Intelligence Unit. The charges related to transporting and possessing the consignment.
Hiru values the heroin at nearly Rs. 100 million and reports that the verdict was delivered by Naomi Wickramasekara, whom it describes as a former judge of the Chilaw High Court.
Nine years from arrest to verdict
The gap is the most concrete fact in the account. The seizure was made in May 2017; the sentence was passed in September 2026 — more than nine years later, in a jurisdiction where remand periods in narcotics cases are themselves a standing complaint. Hiru does not say whether Mujahir was in custody throughout, on bail, or how much of the delay is attributable to the trial rather than to the filing of indictments.
Hiru’s description of Wickramasekara as a former Chilaw High Court judge sits oddly against a verdict delivered on Thursday. The most likely explanation is that the judge heard the trial and has since been transferred or elevated, with the judgment delivered in a case she had reserved — but Hiru does not explain it, and the phrasing may be a translation artefact.
The sentence in practice
Sri Lanka has not carried out a judicial execution since 1976, and death sentences passed by the High Court are in practice commuted or held indefinitely. The government has repeatedly declined to restore executions: in September the President ruled out pardons for underworld figures while stopping short of reinstating the death penalty, and in August a steering council was examining the death penalty for drug offences while senior counsel warned about the safeguards such a step would require.
A death sentence handed down this week is therefore a legal outcome rather than an executable one.
Not reported
Hiru does not give the quantity of heroin seized, which is the figure that would let the Rs. 100 million valuation be checked, and does not say whether the value is a street price or a Government Analyst’s assessment. It does not report whether Mujahir was tried alone or with co-accused, whether he has indicated an appeal, or what became of any others arrested in the 2017 raid.
Ada Derana carried its own report of the sentencing, but the article was unreachable — the site returned a CloudFront 403 — so its details could not be verified or cited. No other verified newsroom had matched the story at the time of writing.
