A woman who was sentenced to life imprisonment for possession of heroin has filed an appeal against that and has been given a fair trial by the Court of Appeal.
Pathirage Jayanthi has been sentenced to life imprisonment on January 18, 2019 by the Colombo High Court for possession of 2.78 grams of heroin. She has filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal against the sentence.
Accordingly, the Court of Appeal heard an appeal filed by her and announced the verdict and decided to acquit and release the woman who had been imprisoned for two years. The verdict was handed down by Court of Appeal Judge Priyantha Fernando with the concurrence of Judge Sampath Abeykoon.
The judgment further states that the High Court Judge did not take into account the evidence of the defendants. The verdict also states that the High Court judge had misled by Fonseka, a witness in the complaint.
The Court of Appeal further stated that the petitioner had accurately described the incident in which he had faced the accused and that the accused woman had been arrested at home and the heroin had been confiscated from her possession on the evidence of the witness and the daughter of the accused Kusuma.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of India in the case of DN Pandey in the case of the State Government of Uttar Pradesh has shown that the witnesses of the accused should be treated equally as the witnesses in the case.
The Court of Appeal, after considering all the facts, ordered the acquittal and release of the accused woman who was convicted by the Colombo High Court on possession of 2.78 grams of heroin and sentenced to life imprisonment and was serving a two year sentence.
Attorney-at-Law Niranjan Jayasinghe appeared for the petitioner while State Counsel Riyas Bari appeared for the Attorney General.