COLOMBO: It will be a day of national mourning the day Sri Lankan government will adopt a parliamentary motion to ban capital punishment, President Maithripala Sirisena said on Sunday.
Addressing a gathering in the north central province, Sirisena said he would not allow the drug dealers and criminals to ruin the future of the country's children.
He stressed that every step would be taken to combat the drug trafficking and will not reverse his decision to implement the death penalty. "The day when the government is set to adopt a parliamentary motion banning capital punishment will be a day of national mourning.The government will be the toast of drug dealers, murderers and criminals," he said. Sirisena last month signed the death warrants to hang four drug convicts.
It would have been the first time that convicts would have been hanged in Sri Lanka since June 1976 as it maintained a 43-year moratorium on capital punishment. However, earlier this month the country's Supreme Court stayed until October 30 the execution order.
The apex court's order came on a fundamental rights petition filed by one of the convicts against the presidential order. MA Sumanthiran, a lawyer, had filed the case, claiming that Sirisena's decision impinges on the rights of one of the drug convicts.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he and his United National Party (UNP) are opposed to the capital punishment. "This Act would mean handing over of the country to the criminals. Drugs are being distributed freely to students, our children are being ruined, The capital punishment fear was the only deterrent", Sirisena stressed.
He said the politicians on both sides have links to the underworld, drug dealers and criminals. "They have united to stop this (capital punishment) being implemented," he said.
Sirisena's decision has come in spite of a UN moratorium on death penalty which Sri Lanka has been consistently supporting. All his predecessors since 1978 had declined to sign death warrants. The death sentencing is commuted to life terms - 20 years in prison.