The Nuwara Eliya High Court on Friday sentenced four men to death in four separate murder cases, with High Court Judge Wijeraj Jayasuriya delivering all four verdicts on the same bench day, NewsFirst reported.
The four cases span almost two decades of unsolved or appealed homicides from the Nuwara Eliya district. A 52-year-old man from Udupussellawa was convicted of murdering his wife in 2015. A 75-year-old was sentenced for a 2010 killing. A 51-year-old from Kenilworth Estate in Ginigathhena received the death penalty over a murder committed in 2000. And a 56-year-old from Theripaha in Walapane had his death sentence upheld after his Supreme Court appeal was dismissed; the original offence dates back to 1997.
Police said the 52-year-old Udupussellawa convict attempted to take his own life shortly after sentencing by consuming poison in a holding-cell washroom. He was rushed under heavy security to the Nuwara Eliya District General Hospital for emergency treatment; his condition was not disclosed.
Sri Lanka has retained the death penalty on the statute books but has not carried out a judicial execution since 1976. High Court convictions still routinely impose the sentence, and the rulings are typically commuted to life imprisonment by successive presidents under the prerogative of mercy. The Nuwara Eliya bench’s same-day quartet follows other recent high-volume death-sentence rulings, including five capital convictions at the Balapitiya High Court earlier this month.
