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| Jaffna Mayor |
I know the gravity of my crimes and how serious they are.
-WANDA BARZEE, speaking Friday in court, where she was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 2002 kidnapping of then 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart.
Fifteen years for kidnapping a child! In Sri Lanka, you believe, especially in the Northern Province, this is not a crime but a part of normal life. Yes, even in the post-Prabakaran period.
Sometimes, you even elect child killer suspects to represent you. T. Illango, Sri Lanka's ruling coalition Deputy Mayor of Jaffna is an example. He was arrested along with several others for alleged complicity in the abduction and brutal murder of a 17-year-old school boy in a botched ransom bid. He was later given conditional bail and told to appear in courts every Monday.
Later, he was found outside the Magistrate Chavakacheri Magistrate T. J. Prabhakaran's house armed with a pistol along with one of the suspects involved in the abduction and murder. Now he is in remand for threatening the Magistrate.
Meanwhile, the Mayor of Jaffna, Ms. Patkunaraja Yogeswari, a mother too, placed an advertisement in a local newspaper calling for the dropping of the charges against Deputy Mayor T. Illango. Jaffna Chief Magistrate A. A. Anandaraja has severely reprimanded the Mayoress for interfering in judiciary matters.
It is bloody funny to see how things happen in liberated Jaffna under the democratic rule of the Colombo government.
