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Two soldiers, two airmen arrested over Kandakadu death
View(s):By Niranjala Ariyawansha
The Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, Major General (Retd) Dharshana Hettiarachchi told the Sunday Times that three separate investigations were underway.
Police are also carrying out a separate investigation and Justice and Prisons Reforms Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe has called for a report. Pic by Champa Madubashini
The suspects had been transferred on Thursday to other locations of the camp.
He said those responsible will be punished.
“On Thursday, I visited the Kandakadu Center. It became clear that four to five lower-ranking officers such as corporals and sergeants were responsible for the death of the inmate. Other inmates had seen an incident. Not only through their statements but there are notes of connected evidence, no one can lie about it. I will not hesitate to take legal action against those found guilty through investigations,” he emphasised.
He said a post-mortem will help establish the cause of death.
The Police are also carrying out a separate investigation and Justice and Prisons Reforms Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe has called for a report.
The 36-year-old who died, had deserted the army nine years ago and had been sent to the camp on allegations of drug use on May 22.
The Kandakadu centre is a rehabilitation camp for drug addicts where they are reoriented and re-socialised. They enter following a court order. There is space for 1,000 inmates and at present 997 are being rehabilitated.
Drugs of any type are prohibited at the centre. 
On Tuesday night, an army instructor had seen the deceased in possession of tobacco and the argument between this instructor and the inmate had led to a violent incident causing unrest.
The commissioner general said that drug addicts behave violently during the first two to three months after they arrive at the center due to being deprived of narcotic drugs and are stressed out.
“During their first two or three months at the camp, they slash their limbs and are under severe stress. They are not considered to be prisoners and allowed to move around freely. We consider them to be patients, and we have an organised programme to reintroduce them to society,” said Maj. Gen. (Rtd.) Hettiarachchi.
According to him, although some other inmates had seen the deceased being assaulted by a few low-ranking officers, they had remained silent at the beginning, due to fear of reprisals.
Unjust behaviour by lower-ranking officers does occur, but inmates do not report incidents, fearing bad consequences.
Under these circumstances, Maj. Gen. Hettiarachchi has asked that five to six randomly picked inmates should discuss with the director of the camp privately, daily, to prevent further incidents.
Army personnel at the camp have been directed to get involved in sports activities with inmates every day to help build trust and rapport and cordiality.
Attorney Senaka Perera, chairman of the Committee to Protect Rights of Prisoners said:
“We want a high profile investigation, because the death of the inmate is very suspicious.’’
He said it had been reported that army personnel had beaten the victim. A complaint has been filed with the Human Rights Commission.
Rehabilitation should be done by professionals and not by force, he said.
Meanwhile, all, except 44 of the 679 who escaped from the camp are yet to be arrested.
In 2021, Kandakadu has treated 592 people, compared with 499, the year before, a January to March 2022 report by the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board, shows.
| UN team cautioned against military running rehab camps Sri Lanka’s military should not be involved in administering rehabilitation programmes and any such programmes must be in the hands of professionally trained medical personnel, a United Nations Working group on arbitrary detention, has recommended following a visit to Sri Lanka in December 2017. The group visited Kandakadu and Senapura Treatment and Rehabilitation Centres, and said it considers that although the two centres, benefit from more relaxed rules than a regular prison, are nevertheless akin to prisons in their organisational scheme (such as barbed wire fences surround the centre, heavily armed army personnel with military uniforms patrolling the boundaries, fixed schedules for activities, impossibility to freely move in and out, the obligatory uniforms for the detainees and the rules for family visits.) Moreover, the group was concerned about the remote location of these centres, which has negative repercussions for family visits. The group said it observed that the compulsory rehabilitation programmes subject detainees for long hours of physically strenuous exercise, there is no individualised assessment conducted to determine the most appropriate treatment programme and the overall delivery of the programme is not carried out by the specifically trained medical professionals. The security and overall regime in the two camps is ensured by the army and the programmes are overseen by counsellors who have received limited training on management of drug dependence from a medical standpoint. The group observed that the detainees had no legal representation, impairing their ability to contest the confinement in rehabilitation centres or to obtain release at the end of the programme. | |
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