Sawt Falasteen - Sri Lanka court revokes monk's pardon, orders return to prison

The ruling marks a major setback for Galagodaatte Gnanasara, 51, a Buddhist nationalist monk whose critics accuse him of fuelling anti-Muslim sentiment and religious tensions in Sri Lanka.

A three-judge bench ruled that the pardon granted by then president Maithripala Sirisena in May 2019 was "arbitrary and invalid".

The court reinstated Gnanasara's sentence and ordered his return to prison.

The case was brought by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and Sandya Eknaligoda, whose husband, political cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, disappeared in 2010 and remains missing.

Rights groups had opposed the clemency, arguing it undermined the rule of law.

Gnanasara, leader of the nationalist Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Force, was jailed in 2018 after being convicted of intimidating Sandya Eknaligoda during proceedings linked to the investigation into her husband's disappearance.

The monk had appeared at a magistrate's hearing to support military intelligence officers accused of abducting Prageeth Eknaligoda, whose cartoons were critical of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

During heated exchanges in court, Gnanasara accused the missing cartoonist and his wife of supporting Tamil extremists and damaging the reputation of the military.

The court later convicted him of criminal intimidation and sentenced him to six years in prison.

However, Sirisena personally intervened and granted Gnanasara a presidential pardon in 2019 after the monk had served less than a year of his sentence.

The decision drew condemnation from rights advocates.

The monk remained politically influential after his release.

In 2020, then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed him to head a committee on legal reforms.

Gnanasara later served a separate nine-month prison term over remarks deemed insulting to Islam and for inciting religious hostility in the Buddhist-majority nation.

He allegedly has close ties with Myanmar's ultranationalist monk Wirathu, who is accused of stoking religious tensions there.

Wirathu visited Sri Lanka at Gnanasara's invitation shortly after anti-Muslim riots in 2014 that left four people dead.

Both monks have portrayed themselves as defenders of Buddhism against what they describe as Islamist extremism, although Gnanasara has denied any role in the riots.

B.AbuZeid--SF-PST