The Supreme Court today ordered three Fundamental Rights petitions filed challenging the decision by former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to grant former MP Duminda Silva Presidential Pardon to be taken up on the 7th of February 2023.
The petitions were taken up for consideration before judges Preethi Padman Surasena, Mahinda Samayawardana, and Arjun Obeysekera today (16).
Having considered facts tabled by all parties the Supreme Court bench ordered the petitions to be taken up on the 7th of February.
Silva was released on Presidential Pardon by former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on the 24th of June 2021, in view of Poson Poya, when he was on death row.
Duminda Silva was sentenced to death over the murder of former MP Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra.
Silva was jailed in September 2016 when the Colombo High Court found him and several others guilty over the murder of Premachandra.
The petitions have been filed by the Premachandra’s wife Sumana Premachandra, his daughter former MP Hirunika Premachandra and a former Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission President’s Counsel Gasali Hussain.
