Police torture and fabricate charges against a young man for revenge

By Jo Baker

(April 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) On the 28 March 2009 between 3 and 4pm a Sergeant Jinasiri and a Constable Anura asked Tharidu Nishan, 21, to join them at Akuressa Police Station to discuss a motorcycle for sale. When he arrived they began to interrogate him about an incident days earlier in which he had slapped his girlfriend; the girlfriend was Sergeant Jinasiri's daughter.

The officers also brought in Tharidu's friend, Nuwan Madusanka, who had been with him at the time of the dispute. The two were asked about a chain that they were supposed to have snatched during the incident and both denied the theft, though not the assault.

According to the two young men and to Tharidu's father, an eyewitness, Sergeant Jinasiri then slapped them both and told them that they would be punished for hurting his daughter. The two were taken into police custody.

That day at about 6.30pm two police officers reportedly stripped the men naked in the police station, tied their hands and feet together and allowed Sergeant Jinasiri to beat the heels of their feet with a wooden baton. He demanded that they confess to the theft of a necklace. Police scattered a substance like salt on the floor and forced the two to jump on it for about ten minutes. Tharidu was also subjected to a form of water torture, which simulates drowning, using a hose.

On 30 March after two days of illegal detention a constable (bearing the No.16350) asked Tharidu for detailed information about his neighbourhood and wrote in a book, which he later asked Tharidu to sign without reading. Tharidu refused to do so. We are told that the officer hit him with a wooden pole and threatened to frame him by planting explosives in his three-wheeler vehicle; Tharidu and Nuwan both signed the book.

At 9.30am the men were finally taken to Morawaka Magistrates Courts (Case No.7954). The police have alleged that Tharidu snatched a necklace (valued at Rs.22,000) from his former girlfriend, and that a piece of the chain was found in the possession of Nuwan. The young men's lawyers informed the Magistrate of their assault, who asked to see the wounds and correctly ordered their examination by a Judicial Medical Officer in Matara General Hospital before they were sent to remand prison until 19 May; police obstructed their chances of posting bail. After their release the two were ordered to report to Akuressa police station each Sunday.

However six months later on one such Sunday we are told that Tharidu was faced with further charges: the sexual assault of a woman he had once carried in his three-wheeler. We have been told that the female victim herself has denied Tharidu's involvement, however he was placed in a cell, produced at Matara Magistrate Courts and remanded (Case No. B.R.2547). He was released on bail on 8 December, after a month. At the time of his second arrest we are also told that PC Anura made motions to beat Tharidu but was halted by a reminder from SI Mahinda, that Tharidu had filed a case with the Human Rights Commission.

Tharidu must currently visit the police station each Sunday, and reports that each week he is subject to harassment by officers there.

Please join the AHRC in calling for the officers allegedly involved in torture to be thoroughly investigated. Those who are proven to have abused their positions of authority by engaging in torture, perverting the course of justice and fabricating charges, must face legal penalties and immediate dismissal from the force. Torture is illegal in Sri Lanka and must be investigated under the CAT Act No. 22 of 1994.

(Source: AHRC)