The Cabinet has approved a special payment of Rs. 5 million to the family of every prison officer killed in the Negombo Prison clash of 5 and 6 July, together with a sliding scale of payments for officers disabled in it, and has agreed to give the Prisons Tactical Force a statutory basis.
The approval covers recommendations submitted for compensation and relief to officers who died or were injured in the clash, Hiru News reported at 2.58 p.m. Colombo time on Tuesday.
What was approved
The Rs. 5 million is a special payment made in addition to compensation payable under Public Administration Circular No. 22/93, Hiru reports — not a replacement for it. The disability payments run on a scale:
| Category | Payment |
|---|---|
| Each officer who died | Rs. 5 million |
| Officer left fully disabled | Rs. 5 million |
| Officer partially disabled, having lost 100% of maximum earning capacity | Rs. 4 million |
| Officer temporarily partially disabled | Rs. 3 million |
The filing does not say how many officers fall into each of the three disability categories, so the total cost of the decision cannot be worked out from it.
This is a third layer, not the first
Compensation for the Negombo officers has been paid in stages, and Tuesday’s decision adds to what has already gone out rather than restating it. In August, families of the 10 officers killed received Rs. 2 million each at a ceremony at Prison Headquarters, paid under the Agrahara insurance scheme run by the National Insurance Trust Fund. All 10 were attached to the Prison Emergency Response Unit, and the officers who died were also granted posthumous promotions.
Tuesday’s decision is the first in this sequence taken at Cabinet level, and the first to set a figure for disability as well as death.
Hiru’s report does not give a number of recipients. If the toll established in this archive still holds — 10 prison officers among the 32 people killed — the death payments alone would come to Rs. 50 million, but the filing does not state the figure and this is an inference, not a reported total.
A legal status for the tactical force
The Cabinet also approved steps to strengthen the Prisons Tactical Force (බන්ධනාගාර උපක්රමික බලකාය). The recommendations include:
- Amending the Prisons Ordinance so that the force can be given a legal status
- Recruiting sufficient and suitable officers to it
- Providing them with formal training
That the force is to be given a legal footing by amendment implies it has been operating without a clear one. The filing does not say what its present status is, when it was formed, or what powers the amendment would confer. It also does not say whether the Prisons Tactical Force and the Prison Emergency Response Unit — the unit to which the 10 officers killed in July belonged — are the same body under different names, and this desk has not established that they are.
The clash
The clash at Negombo Prison on 5 and 6 July 2026 killed 32 people — 22 inmates and 10 prison officers — with more than 100 injured. It was the deadliest incident in a Sri Lankan prison in decades. Hiru’s date matches the one established across this archive.
The criminal side of the case is running in parallel. On 23 October the Negombo Magistrate’s Court found that the deaths amounted to a crime and ordered a CID investigation, with 106 suspects remanded and the Government Analyst’s ballistic and forensic reports still outstanding more than three months on.
Tuesday’s decision concerns compensation for officers only. Nothing in the filing addresses the 22 inmates who died, or whether any payment has been approved for their families.
Not reported
The filing does not name the minister who submitted the recommendations, say which body drew them up, or give a date by which the payments are to be made. It does not say whether the Rs. 2 million already paid in August is deducted from the Rs. 5 million or is additional to it.
It gives no figure for the number of officers disabled, no definition of how “100% of maximum earning capacity” is assessed or by whom, and no appeal route for an officer who disputes a category. It does not say when the Prisons Ordinance amendment will be brought to Parliament.
On sourcing: this report rests on a single verified newsroom. The Daily Mirror’s breaking-news listing on Tuesday carried five other decisions from the same Cabinet meeting — an ADB loan, an aviation wildlife committee, intellectual property regulations, a 2027 trade union congress and a Colombo Port grant — but not this one. Searches of NewsFirst, Daily News, Daily FT, Island, EconomyNext, Colombo Gazette and the government portals at news.lk and cabinetoffice.gov.lk returned no filing on it; both government sites are JavaScript-gated and could not be read by this desk. Ada Derana has been unreachable for 44 days.