COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickemesinghe granted amnesty to more than 1,000 convicts and released them from prisons across the country in time for Christmas, a prisons official said today (Monday).
Among the 1,004 released were Sri Lankans jailed for not being able to pay outstanding fines, according to Prisons Commissioner Gamini Dissanayake.
Sri Lanka is majority Buddhist and a similar number of convicts were released in May to mark the Vesak holiday, which celebrates the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death.
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The latest pardon came after police arrested almost 15,000 people during a week-long army-backed anti-drug operation that was halted on the eve of Christmas.
According to a police statement, 13,666 suspects were arrested and nearly 1,100 addicts were detained and sent to military facilities for mandatory rehabilitation.
The island country’s prisons are chronically overcrowded.
According to official figures, as of Friday, there were nearly 30,000 inmates in facilities designed to hold 11,000 inmates.
