The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has concluded that the prison administration failed to contain and properly resolve the violence that killed 32 people at Negombo Prison in July, and has recommended that those responsible be identified and prosecuted, Hiru News reported.
The Commission issued eight recommendations with its report. It says prison authorities and the Secretary to the Ministry of Justice should appoint a special committee, commission a study and act on its findings to prevent a recurrence.
What the Commission did
According to the Commission’s own account of the report, it opened an own-motion investigation under Section 14 of the Human Rights Commission Act No. 21 of 1996, registered as complaint number HRC/SUOMOTU/05/2026.
Investigators carried out an on-site inspection at Negombo Prison and took statements from injured officers and inmates at Negombo Hospital and the National Hospital in Colombo. Because inmates were dispersed after the clash, Commission officers travelled to all eleven prisons that received them — Welikada, Angunakolapelessa, Boossa, Dumbara, Wariyapola, Kuruwita, Jaffna, Batticaloa, Monaragala, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa — to record statements. A further 22 officers from the Department of Prisons, Sri Lanka Police and the Police Special Task Force were summoned.
The report is dated 27 October and was made public the following day. Copies went to the Ministers of Defence, Public Security, and Justice and National Integration, to the Justice Ministry Secretary and to the Commissioner General of Prisons.
What inmates told investigators
One inmate who gave evidence said the clash began with inmates informing on fellow prisoners to officers at a “room party”. He said the dispute arose after an inmate disclosed details of drug use inside the prison.
Another pointed to standing animosity between inmates of wards 2 and 7 as the underlying cause.
Inmates held internal control for a day
The investigating team found that from the afternoon of 5 July until 6 July, internal control of the prison lay with the inmates. They broke into the prison hospital and the disciplinary unit, took the medicines and drugs held there, and behaved violently; women inmates were also found to have been involved.
The report states that inmates killed a number of other inmates, and that officers were killed afterwards in those attacks. The Special Task Force was called in to regain control.
Injured officers told investigators they were attacked with wooden poles, stones, flower pots, roof tiles, glass shards, iron bars and sharp weapons.
One exchange is recorded directly: the Negombo prison superintendent went in at one point and told inmates to stop and return to their cells, and inmates shouted back that they would lock up when they chose to.
A prison officer testified that male inmates broke into the prison hospital, threw the medicines they seized towards the women’s section, and that he saw women inmates swallowing them.
Some statements also allege assaults during the transfer of inmates from Negombo to other prisons.
The toll, and who the dead officers were
The Commission records the dead as 10 Prison Emergency Response Tactical Force officers and 22 inmates, with more than 100 officers and inmates injured.
That settles a description this archive has flagged twice. Hiru previously called the dead officers members of the police Special Task Force while the Magistrate’s Court proceedings and the compensation payments identified them as prison officers. The Commission’s wording — a prison tactical force, distinct from the STF that was called in afterwards — matches the Cabinet decision on compensation for prison officers of that unit. The 22-and-10 breakdown is the one established in this archive.
Context
The Commission’s findings land six days after the Negombo Magistrate’s Court ruled the deaths amounted to a crime and ordered a CID investigation. That court remanded 106 suspects — 81 men and 25 women — until 29 October, today.
Not reported
Hiru’s filing does not list all eight recommendations, name any individual the Commission holds responsible, or say whether the Commission’s findings have been passed to the CID. The Commission’s public summary does not state what it concluded about the use of force by officers, about the allegations of assaults during transfers, or about the delays in medical treatment it had raised at the investigation’s outset. Neither account gives a deadline for acting on the recommendations.
No other verified newsroom had filed on the report at the time of writing. Daily Mirror’s breaking-news listing, the NewsFirst rail, ft.lk, island.lk and Lankadeepa carried nothing on it; Ada Derana remains unreachable behind a CloudFront block. Two near-identical older headlines — a Daily FT report of 17 July and a Lankadeepa report of 21 August — concern earlier stages of the same case and are not coverage of this report.