Archives

Supreme Court allows appeal: sets aside order of CA

by Wasantha Ramanayake

The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside the order of the Court of Appeal affirming the conviction by the High Court on an LTTE suspect who was charged with attacking the Army at Kattuwana, solely based on a confession made by him. The court unanimously held that the Court of Appeal erred in affirming conviction which was solely based on the confession of the suspect.

The Bench comprised Justices Mark Fernando PC, Ameer Ismail and C. V. Wigneswaran.

The Judges in three separate judgements allowed the appeal of the Accused-appellant-appellant Nagamani Theivendran setting aside the order of the Court of Appeal, which affirmed the High Court order.

The accused-appellant-appellant was indicted with attacking Army personnel at Kattuwana between January 1, 1993 and April 30, 1993. During the prosecution he denied the charges and making the said confession.

In his Judgment Justice Ismail observed that appellant was convicted of the said charges on June 27, 1996, and sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Then the Court of Appeal affirmed the High Court order on August 23, 1999.

"The confession is vague, indefinite and void of material particulars and in the absence of any other evidence it can not be relied upon ...". "The Court of Appeal has erred in affirming the conviction based solely upon the contents of the confession."

Justice Mark Fernando PC among the other matters observed that the said confession included details of the activities of the appellant after he joined the LTTE in March 1992 and mentioned an attack on Army at Kattuwana.

"Learned High Court Judge obliged to consider beyond reasonable doubt, that the attack at the Kattuwana took place during the period covered by the charge between January 1 and April 30, 1993. He observed that the time period in the confession was possibly after the attack." I therefore agree with the Justice Ismail that the conviction cannot stand and appeal must be allowed.

"Its voluntariness is questionable, its authenticity is questionable, its adequacy with regard to the material matters is questionable and above all its veracity is questionable. Such questionable confession should not be made the basis for conviction of the accused in this case," observed Justice C. V. Wignesvaran.

Dr. Ranjith Fernando appeared with V. S. Gaveshlingam and Ms. S. Munasinghe appeared for the accused-appellant-appellant.

Senior State Counsel Yasantha Kodagoda appeared for Attorney General.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager