‘Sri Lankan President Won’t Sign Death Warrants’

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe won’t sign verdicts delivered by any court of law in the country to implement capital punishment, the attorney general has told the Supreme Court. A five judge bench is hearing a bunch of petitions filed against resumption of death penalty proposed in 2019 by then President Maithripala Sirisena. On June 26, 2019, Sirisena had signed the order to impose the death penalty for four prisoners convicted of drug peddling, after which the petitions were filed. The petitioners argued that former Presidents late J.R. Jayewardene, slain Ranasinghe Premadasa, late D.B. Wijetunga, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa had refrained from signing on death warrants, without which those sentenced to death cannot be executed in prisons, reports The Morning. Sri Lanka last carried out an execution on June 23, 1976.