{"id":12205,"date":"2012-02-04T01:02:53","date_gmt":"2012-02-04T01:02:53","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-02-04T01:02:53","modified_gmt":"2012-02-04T01:02:53","slug":"Sri-Lanka-frees-1-400-prisoners-on-freedom-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=12205","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka frees 1,400 prisoners on freedom day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka freed 1,414 convicts on Saturday to mark the country’s 64th anniversary of independence from Britain, a prisons official said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

President Mahinda Rajapakse granted an amnesty to convicts serving light sentences, but Sri Lanka’s most high-profile prisoner, former army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, was not among those released.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There had been intense local media speculation that Rajapakse may use the Independence anniversary to pardon his rival.<\/p>\n

Fonseka was arrested two weeks after he lost presidential polls to Rajapakse in January 2010<\/strong> and is currently serving a three-year sentence for alleging that the president’s brother had ordered the execution of surrendering rebels.<\/p>\n

Fonseka is also serving a concurrent 30-month sentence handed down after a court martial found him guilty of irregularities when he was army chief.<\/p>\n

Fonseka lead troops in a military campaign against the Tamil Tiger rebels that ended the island’s 37-year separatist war in May 2009.<\/strong> He fell out with Rajapakse over who should take credit for the victory.<\/p>\n

Source AFP<\/em>
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