(COLOMBO) – Sri Lanka at present does not implement the death penalty where the execution was carried out by hanging, but nonetheless a total of 61 inmates are known to have hanged themselves since 2020 to date for various reasons, statistics from the Prisons Department reveal.
From the documented 631 prison deaths during this same period 61 inmates had opted for the easy way out by hanging themselves, according to the statistics.
The statistics also indicate that from the total of 631 deaths 357 were inmates who had not been convicted and were awaiting trial.
The majority of the deaths occurred largely owing to sickness and old age and the bulk of the fatalities took place at the country’s largest jail in Welikada Colombo.
At least 11 inmates were also killed in a bloody clash between rival groups at the Mahara Jail situated in the outskirts of the commercial capital of Colombo in 2020 while three others drowned in a river during a botched escape from the Pallekelle detention facility in the country’s central province that same year.
Sri Lankan jails are notorious for its overcrowding and poor facilities and where thousands of non-convicts are forced to wait for many years before their individual cases are taken up in a court.
