Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday said that the UNP could not support the move to implement capital punishment in Sri Lanka as it was against the party’s policies.
Addressing a public gathering at Mariarawa in Moneragala after opening a water supply scheme, the PM said that taking the life of another was against UNP policies.
The PM pointed out that the UNP, the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led Opposition, the JVP and the TNA were all against implementing the death penalty. Therefore he said that he hoped to discuss this matter with the Cabinet of Ministers, and then with President Maithripala Sirisena and Speaker Karu Jayasuriya.
The PM recalled that Sri Lanka voted in favour of the UN resolution on the Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty in 2016 and again in 2018.
“President Sirisena was the President and I was the Prime Minister when Sri Lanka voted in favour of moratorium on the death penalty in 2016. When it was reaffirmed on December 17, 2018, President Sirisena was the President and Mahinda Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister,” he observed.
The PM recalled that former President late J.R. Jayewardene decided to stop implementing the death penalty and his successors late R. Premadasa, late D.B. Wijetunga, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa continued with that decision.
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