Posted by Udaya Arunakantha on June 23, 2026 – 10:43 am
FILE PHOTO
The Colombo Excessive Court docket in the present day (June 23) upheld the nine-month jail sentence and Rs. 1,500 high-quality imposed on Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero for making statements deemed insulting to Islam and dangerous to concord between communities.
The judgment was delivered by Colombo Excessive Court docket Choose Manjula Thilakaratne, who dismissed an attraction filed by Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero searching for to overturn his conviction, jail sentence, and high-quality.
The case was filed by the police below the Penal Code, alleging that in a media briefing held within the Kirulapone space in 2016, the Basic Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), Ven. Gnanasara Thero, made statements insulting Islam and acted in a fashion that disrupted inter-ethnic and inter-religious concord.
Following a trial, the Colombo Justice of the Peace’s Court docket discovered him responsible of the cost and on January 9, 2025, sentenced him to 9 months in jail and imposed a high-quality of Rs. 1,500.
Ven. Gnanasara Thero later filed an attraction earlier than the Colombo Excessive Court docket searching for to be acquitted and launched from the sentence.
Delivering the decision, Choose Manjula Thilakaratne said that making statements in a fashion that breaches spiritual concord constitutes an illegal act and that stopping such actions is a accountability of each the legislation and the judicial course of.
The decide additional noticed that the choice of the Colombo Further Justice of the Peace to convict and sentence the accused was not opposite to the legislation and accordingly dismissed the attraction.
With the Excessive Court docket rejecting the attraction, the conviction, nine-month jail sentence, and Rs. 1,500 high-quality imposed by the Justice of the Peace’s Court docket stay in impact.
