
Sri Lanka has hired two executioners for planned resumption of executions. This was reported by local media in Colombo on Sunday with reference to the prison administration.
On Wednesday, the president of the South Asian island nation, Maithripala Sirisena, signed the execution orders for four people convicted of drug-related offenses, thus initiating the execution of death sentences again after a hiatus of 43 years. Sirisena’s announcement that death row convicts would be put back to death by hanging had drawn sharp international criticism.
Last executioner retired in 2014
The European Union said the plan contradicted the country’s pledges at last year’s UN General Assembly to maintain the moratorium. The last time a person was executed in Sri Lanka was in July 1976.
Sri Lanka’s government has been planning the renewed execution of the death penalty for some time now. Because the country’s last executioner had already retired in 2014, the government placed a job advertisement in February for the post, for which "mental strength" and "a good moral character" were required according to the job profile. More than 100 people applied for the job.
Mostly it became a life sentence
On Friday, a journalist in Sri Lanka had petitioned to stop the planned executions because they violate civil rights. On 2. July, a court must now address the question of whether the resumption of executions is compatible with the interception.
In Sri Lanka, the death penalty is regularly imposed for murder, rape and drug trafficking, but it has almost always been commuted to life imprisonment. At present, 1.299 prisoners sentenced to death in Sri Lanka, including 48 for drug offenses.