News

News

Prisons: Where some are more equal than others
By Shimali Senanayake
A special commission will be set up next week to inquire into alleged malpractices and corruption at the Colombo magazine prison, the first major investigation into Sri Lankan penitentiaries in decades.

The probe follows a visit by Suhada Gamalath, secretary to the ministry of justice, to the Welikada Magazine Prison, that raised a hornet’s nest. Mr. Gamalath told the Sunday Times that he was "dumbfounded," when he discovered that some of the country's most notorious remand prisoners were bunched together in a secluded compound with seemingly better conditions than the rest. "I don't want to name the persons, but I was told there was a lot of pressure being brought to bear on the prisons administrative structure by powerful persons to give some preferential treatment to some of the remand prisoners," he said. Mr. Gamalath decided to check it out for himself and made an unannounced visit. The trail led him to the controversial building -- a former armoury during colonial British rule -- in an area separated from the regular wards. This was ‘P-Cell’ one of the three high-security cells in the premises.

The fortified steel gates of the Magazine Prison were opened to The Sunday Times too. K.K.S.U. Rajan, chief jailer at the prison said the neatly tended flower-beds at the rear-end of the cell, was the work of the inmates. A narrow entrance opened out to a slightly wider corridor with six cells, 5’x7’ feet in size, next to each other, all lined on the right side of the building. There was security but visibly scant, for a high-security cell. The steel-barred doors were open and the inmates were walking about in the corridor area. A closer look revealed piles of clothes and water in plastic bottles. Some contained small Buddhist shrines.

There was no furniture and rolled-up mats were placed against the wall. In the corridor was a 21" Sony television, placed on three clay stones , to form a stand. At the far end were two toilets. There were two fans and a small tank used for bathing. The area, tiled up to about 4 feet was refreshingly clean. Two wall-mounted fans were erected on the left side, opposite the cells. There was no air-conditioning or any signs of it.

A carom board lay against a corridor wall. Chandana, an inmate for three years said the fans were fixed a year ago after persistent complaining that the building was unbearably hot. Among the 19 in P-Cell were some five Chinese, three Pakistani's all allegedly involved in international drug deals. Suspects in the assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and a suspect in a multi-million dollar VAT fraud were also housed here. Of the19 inmates, two were convicts. According to Rajan, at dusk, they are put in groups of three or sometimes four in their cells. On the opposite side of the compound, there were two similar high security cells, identified as G-Cell and H-Cell. G-Cell once held former JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera, Rajan said, rather proudly.
There were six cells here housing 17 inmates, two of whom were convicts. One of inmates was puffing a cigarette but quickly put it out when we walked in. Here there was one fan fixed in the corridor. The bathroom was not tiled. An unattended draughts-board lay on the floor. The garden outside these G and H cells were similarly tended.

And then there are the wards. It was lunch time, and prisoners in the general wards poured into the compound with their meals. Some were also doing carpentry work. There were a few in their white convict's suit painting the ward walls. We were advised against wandering through the wards due to security reasons. We were told some of the toilets here too were tiled though they were not is such a good condition due to many inmates using them. There were no fans.

The wards had the capacity for a maximum 130 inmates but each floor was packed with more than 200 inmates. Referring to his visit to the P Cell, Mr. Gamlath said he was surprised to see this fairly comfortable area for a small number of people while the rest of the prison appeared to be bursting at its seams. However prison’s Commissioner General Rumy Marzook told the Sunday Times that the prisoners were being housed separately due to threats to their lives. "There is an inherent danger that orders can be given from outside to kill prisoners inside and vice versa. Prison officials themselves are at high risk when dealing with these people. Connections and money can do a lot," Mr. Marzook said, without elaborating.

However Mr. Gamalath said there was little security when he made a visit inspite of thehigh-risk prisoners. “There appears to be a big difference in the manner in which the inmates are being treated in this section,” Mr. Gamalath said. He said financial allocation should be distributed evenly so that the appalling condition of the majority of the prison inmates could be improved.
"There wasn’t a single poor prisoner among those inmates at the P Cell. There were only influential prisoners there, including foreigners,” he said.

Mr. Marzook however insisted that all the prisoners were being treated equally but that some high profile cases needed to be given additional protection. He said underworld king-pins and hardcore criminals were housed in high-security cells. "We are not giving them women and massage parlors. A person does not become a non-person simply because he has been incarcerated. A person who commits a crime is incarcerated more as a deterrent than as a punishment,” Mr. Marzook insisted.

"There are no bungalows here with air conditioning. There is no authenticity in these claims," a visibly angry Mr. Marzook said, referring to news reports quoting Mr. Gamalath. Mr. Gamalath however said he never referred to any air-conditioning or so-called five-star treatment. He said those were "embellishments" by journalists.

According to a study done by S.C. J, Bandaragama, a former prisons commissioner in 2002, titled "Classification and institutional treatment of offenders in Sri Lanka prisons and alternatives to custody and treatment of offenders, prisoners are classified as Organized Crime Offenders or Hard Core, on the basis of reports forwarded by the police.

If there are more than two prisoners in the same case, they are not located in one prison but are located in different prisons to prevent close contact. They are segregated from normal prisoners and their custody is under close supervision and special security. As there are no maximum security prisons in Sri Lanka, to house this category of prisoners, special sections have been constructed within some of the large prisons.

These section are under maximum security. An official of The International Committee for the Red Cross visits Sri Lanka's 22 prisons at least once a year. It submits a confidential report to the prison's commissioner with a copy to the justice ministry annually. Under a 1989 pact between the ICRC and the defence ministry confidentiality has to be maintained regarding their visit, Marcal Izard, communications officer for the ICRC in Colombo said.

However, he did say that prisoners can be put together in separate groups for security reasons usually following a court order. But he stressed that equal treatment of prisoners was a must and segregation did not entitle anyone to preferential treatment or additional facilities. Mr. Izard said the the United Nations definition of minimum standards, for prisoners, every inmate should have access to clean sanitation, fresh air, fresh water to drink, family visits, equal medical treatment and access to the legal system.

The ICRC had supplied all Sri Lankan prisons with educational books, chess boards, badminton rackets and tennis balls, he added. The Superintendent of Prisons or SP, has the authority to segregate certain prisoners. It is on his recommendation that transfers take place. "To my knowledge, there have been no irregularities committed by the SP, W. Wijethilake" Mr. Marzook said, standing by his officer.

But Mr. Gamalath believes that some gross irregularities may have occurred . “We should get magisterial ruling to get the endorsement for the separation of a particular person who claims that his life is under threat and therefore needs special security. "If it is going to be left in the hands of a prison's officer alone, in my personal view this can lead to serious disciplinary problems as well as malpractices," Mr. Gamalath said.

He also feels that housing high profile criminals together makes a mockery of the criminal justice system. “How can you house all these people in one place day and night. You live there, you make friends with these people. What must be going on in these places? All these criminal elements together. What must be going through their minds? "Don't the authorities in charge of these places have a modicum of intelligence to that aspect?" Normalization of their minds is most important. But here what you do is you lump them together.”
On instructions from the justice ministry, Mr. Wijethileke was transferred to the Anuradhapura prison and Matthew Prematilake, took over as SP. He immediately took steps to transfer the inmates in P-Cell, to other facilities around the island.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has also called Mr. Gamalath on Thursday, requesting for "something to be done to correct the situation." The special commission will be headed by two retired judges, one from the Supreme Court and the other from the Court of Appeal. Mr. Gamalath said simultaneously a panel will probe the manner in which prisoners are transferred out of prisons hospital to general hospital, merchants ward.

He said a panel of specialists, led by Dr. H.H.R. Samarasinghe had already raised concerns about the issue that could bring their profession into disrepute. According to the law at present, it's the prisons doctor who makes the recommendation and these laws were drafted 50 years ago by the British. "This system needs to be changed. What we need is another panel of doctors to evaluate if these persons need to be transferred or not," Mr. Gamalath said.

Commenting on the tensions that have arisen between the justice ministry and the prison's department over the issue, Mr. Gamalath said, "no personality is important in this issue. Our focus here is about the existing criminal justice system and to which extent it is helping to curb the crime situation in the country.It’s not about Rumy Marzook or Suhada Gamalath or any other person. It is to do with looking at the criminal justice system and what must be done to rectify it."

Top

Back to News