FIVE INDIAN FISHERMEN were given death penalty by a Sri Lankan court on Thursday for alleged drug trafficking. The Five Indian fishermen, namely Emerson, P. Augustus, R. Wilson, K. Prasath and J.Langlet were apprehended on November 28, 2011, by Sri Lankan Navy on charges of narcotics smuggling. They had been arrested on a boat in the seas off northern Jaffna’s Delft islet. The High Court judge Preethi Padman Surasena passed judgement on the five Indians and three Sri Lankans for involvement in heroin trafficking between India and Sri Lanka in 2011. However, the Indian government, which has been pursuing their case for the last four years, maintains that it has done due diligence and found them to be innocent. Meanwhile, India’s external intel agency the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) has in its assessment report submitted to the office of the National Security Advisor said that “information and details collected by the agency from multiple sources clearly proves that the five Indian fishermen given death sentence in Sri Lanka were innocent”.- India’s High Commission in Colombo will appeal to higher court through a lawyer against the judgement by the lower court against these five Indian fishermen”. India has been pursuing the case at both levels – legal and official – and will continue doing so. Responding to a question, Keheliya Rambukwella, Sri Lankan Minister for Information, said India understands Sri Lankas prevalent laws. India is clearly aware of another countrys legal systems, treaties signed, convicts exchange agreements, Rambukwella said adding that Sri Lanka need not make any interpretation of Indian concerns. India said that the sentence of two Indian nationals who were sentenced to death in Sri Lanka in the 1990s was commuted to life imprisonment by the then Sri Lankan President and were allowed to subsequently serve their jail term in India as per an existing pact between the two countries and that therefore a legal architecture exists to address such cases. lawyers representing the fishermen had told the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo that they were of the view that there had been a miscarriage of justice.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 08:16:53 +0000
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