The Court of Appeal on Monday ordered that the six-year prison sentence imposed on Bodu Bala Sena general secretary Ven. Galagodaaththe Gnanasara Thera take effect from today, and he was taken to Welikada Prison by prison officials, the Daily Mirror reported.
The order was made by the same two-judge bench that has handled the matter throughout — Justices Mayadunne Corea and Lakmali Karunanayake — on a motion by the Attorney General seeking an order giving effect to the Supreme Court judgment that annulled the presidential pardon granted to him in May 2019 by then-President Maithripala Sirisena.
Hiru News reported that the court directed the Commissioner General of Prisons to take the necessary measures to execute the remaining term. He was produced before the Court of Appeal by prison officers, Hiru said, open warrants having been issued for his arrest.
This is the step the whole sequence was directed at
The order closes a procedural problem that has run since the Supreme Court ruled on 10 September that the pardon was void, leaving the balance of the sentence owing.
The Department of Prisons could not act on its own: it receives a person into custody, it does not go and find one. Prison officials who went to his Nawala temple on 14 September were told nobody knew where he was. The Court of Appeal then issued a warrant through the IGP on 29 September, widened it to an open warrant on 1 October with an overseas travel ban, and the Colombo Crimes Division arrested him at a forest monastery on 3 October. A magistrate remanded him overnight on Sunday and directed that he be produced before the Court of Appeal today.
Each of those steps secured custody. None of them started the clock on the sentence. Today’s order does.
The sentence being enforced
The contempt conviction arises from his conduct at the Homagama Magistrate’s Court in January 2016, during proceedings on the disappearance of journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda. He was convicted on four counts on 8 August 2018 and sentenced to terms totalling 19 years, to run concurrently over a period of six years.
He had served roughly nine months when the pardon came. The Supreme Court struck it down on a fundamental rights petition brought by a group including Sandya Eknaligoda, the missing journalist’s wife — the same case whose 2016 hearing produced the contempt charges.
Not reported
No verified outlet states the exact balance now to be served. Reports agree the remaining period of the six-year term begins today, but none gives a figure, and accounts of how much he had already served vary. LankaNewz is not publishing a remaining-term figure that no newsroom has confirmed.
Nor does any filing say where within the prison system he will be held beyond the committal to Welikada, whether counsel appeared for him today, or what becomes of his pending request for a fresh presidential pardon and the signature campaign launched at a Mihintale temple in support of one. The separate indictments he faces in the Colombo High Court over remarks about Islam are unaffected by today’s order and remain outstanding.
Ada Derana also reported the order, but its filing could not be retrieved — the site has returned a CloudFront block to this desk for eleven consecutive days.
Sources: Daily Mirror, Hiru News, Newswire.
