Two death-row convicts climbed on the roof of a prison in Sri Lanka on Monday and demanded presidential pardon, days after President Maithripala Sirisena granted amnesty to a murderer belonging to a wealthy and high-profile family.
Jude Jayamaha, who was convicted for the murder of his Swedish girlfriend in 2005, walked free out of the Welikada prison on Saturday last after Sirisena, in an unusual move, granted him pardon just a week before he leaves office.
Two death-row convicts lodged in the Welikada jail here on Monday climbed the prison roof and demanded that the president should also grant them amnesty, the prison officials said without revealing the name of the duo.
Several other convicts are staging a hunger strike in the jail to back their demand, they said.
Sirisena's move to pardon Jayamaha has caused outrage across the nation.
Sirisena, who will step down after the November 16 presidential election at which he is not a candidate, announced last month that he was considering a request to grant Jayamaha a pardon, saying that the convict has behaved well in prison and had been jailed aged 19 "over an incident of impatience".
Jayamaha beat his 19-year-old girlfriend Yvonne Jonsson to death at a posh apartment in Colombo after an argument.
During the trial, the court was told that the skull of the victim was fractured into 64 pieces.
Jayamaha was initially sentenced to 12 years in prison. His subsequent appeal against his jail term was rejected and he was sentenced to death, a sentence also upheld by the Supreme Court in 2014.
Following his pardon, the victim's sister Carloine Jonsson-Bradely has launched a social media campaign expressing her outrage at the move.
Sirisena had earlier vowed to reintroduce death penalty for drug convicts.
In June, he signed the death warrants to hang four drug convicts, prompting a global outrage, including the European Union.
The EU in a statement said the death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and a degrading punishment, and it unequivocally opposes its use in all circumstances and all cases.
Sri Lanka, which is a signatory to the UN moratorium on the death penalty, last executed a prisoner in 1976.
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