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SriLankan Airlines employee acquitted after 12 years
Negombo Additional Magistrate Darshima Premarathne acquitted and released a former employee of SriLankan Airlines from the charges of aiding and abetting one John Benedict to leave Sri Lanka illegally.
The accused, several others including two other employees of SriLankan Airlines were arrested at the Katunayake Airport on 10 August 2011 for allegedly aiding and abetting to leave some Sri Lankans in contravention of the provisions of the Immigrants and Emigrants Act.
The accused was a former employee of SriLankan Airlines and while he was at work on 10 August 2011 another employee of SriLankan Airlines, who was on leave at the time, had sent the names of some passengers through a SMS. The accused after receiving the SMS alerted the senior officer of SriLankan Airlines.
Thereafter, the CID arrested the accused and the other accused at the Katunayake Airport and produced them before the Negombo Magistrate’s court. While making his statement from the dock the accused told court that the other employees and the main accused who had taken money from the passengers in order to organize their departure from the country in contravention of the law, were discharged by the Attorney General as they could retain a former Attorney General as their lawyer soon after his retirement. Since the accused had no sufficient money to retain the former Attorney General who entered private practice after his retirement, the accused stated in court that he and his family members had to suffer for 12 long years for an offence that he had never committed.
The former employee who sent the SMS to the accused and the main accused who had obtained money from several passengers have been discharged by the Attorney General without charging them before court. Having considered the evidence of the prosecution and the dock statement of the accused, the Magistrate acquitted and discharge the accused from the charge stating that the prosecution has failed to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt. Senior Counsel Darshana Kuruppu with Dineru Bandara appeared for the accused.(Lakmal Sooriyagoda)
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