(COLOMBO) – A Sri Lankan court on Thursday acquitted in absentia a suspected large scale drug baron after it was established that the police had contradicted their testimonies in the case.
Colombo High Court Judge Manjula Thilakaratne ordered the defendant’s acquittal citing significant contradictions in the evidence provided by officers of the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB).
The prosecution told the court that the suspect Mohamed Shiran Basik was arrested on January 11 2011, in the commercial capital of Colombo with 4.53 grams of heroin.
Initially, the court was told that the suspect was arrested alone, but later police officials claimed he was with his child at the time of arrest.
Moreover, despite a police officer’s assertion that the raid was prompted by a tip-off from a certain phone number, evidence presented by the defense revealed that the phone number in question had been disconnected approximately one and a half years prior to the arrest.
Given these inconsistencies, the judge deemed it inappropriate to convict the accused. The trial proceeded in the absence of Basik, who had fled to Dubai.
In a separate development, authorities had recently initiated the demolition of a hotel situated near the beachfront in the city suburb, reportedly owned by the accused.
