Death Sentence for 12 Over Lynching of MP During Sri Lanka’s Mass Uprising

A court in Sri Lanka has sentenced 12 people to death for beating a Member of Parliament to death during the mass uprising in 2022. On Wednesday (February 11), a court in the country announced the sentence against the accused.

Investigating officers told the court that during the mass uprising, protesters blocked the car of 57-year-old lawmaker Amarakeerthi Athukorala in the town of Nittambuwa near the capital Colombo. At that time, he opened fire targeting the protesters. Later, he was lynched by the crowd.

Although Athukorala tried to take shelter in a building, the crowd surrounded him. Among a crowd of nearly five thousand people, several individuals beat him to death. His bodyguard was also beaten to death.

The killing occurred in May 2022 during nationwide protests against severe shortages of food, fuel, and medicine. Due to a lack of foreign currency, the country was then unable to bear the cost of necessary imports.

A three-judge bench of the Gampaha High Court on Wednesday convicted 12 people by majority opinion and acquitted another 23 accused in the Athukorala case. An appeal against this verdict can be filed with the Supreme Court.

The death penalty has not been carried out in Sri Lanka since 1976. However, courts regularly sentence convicts to death for serious crimes.

During the 2022 protests, supporters of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa attempted to violently suppress peaceful gatherings in Colombo. Following the incident, houses of at least 75 lawmakers of the ruling party were set on fire.

Later, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned.

The protests began after the country’s government failed to repay 46 billion dollars in foreign debt in April 2022. However, Rajapaksa’s successor Ranil Wickremesinghe secured a large loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in early 2023.

In the September 2024 presidential election, Wickremesinghe was defeated by leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Since assuming office, Dissanayake has stabilized the country’s economy by maintaining austerity policies.