Surety gets 10 years RI

failing to produce accused in Court:

Sandasen Marasinghe

COLOMBO: Colombo High Court Judge W.T.M.P.B. Warawewa yesterday sentenced a surety of a case to seven years’ Rigorous Imprisonment when he failed to produce the accused of the case before the Court.

Patrick Terrance Fernando, the surety failed to present accused, Devakrishna Punyawanth Seneviratne before the Colombo High Court and also to settle surety bail of Rs 100,000.

The Court also issued warrant on D. P. Seneviratne.

Seneviratne was indicted on three counts for signing as a witness to mislead a lawyer to make a forged deed for a plot of land and for urging Liyanage Leelawathi Perera of Siyambalape to buy it for Rs. 400,000 on August 16, 1992. According to the indictment Seneviratne had signed as a witness with the full knowledge that the seller of the plot of land was not Wijewickrama Kotigalage Gihan Nishanka the original owner of the plot of land.

Seneviratne was the witness of a fraudulent land transaction at No 66, Buthgamuwa Road, Welikada, Rajagiriya.

Ultimately V.B. Nandasena bought the said plot of land with the forged deed and when he handed it over to a real estate company it was revealed the extracts on the plot of land was torn off at the Colombo Land Registry.

Later on Nandasena learnt that Gihan Nishanka had not sold the plot of land and Nandasena had a forged deed.