A radical Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka was today sentenced to six months rigourous imprisonment after he was found guilty in a case of harassing and intimidating the wife of a missing journalist.
The Homagama court, in the Colombo suburb, had on May 24 found Galagodaatte Gnanasara guilty on two counts of criminal harassment and criminal intimidation of Sandya Eknaligoda, and fixed June 14 as the date to pronounce the quantum of punishment.
The magistrate today sentenced the monk to six months in prison with hard labour for both the offences, which would run concurrently.
The court also slapped a fine of 50,000 Sri Lankan rupees, which should be paid to the victim at once, but if he fails, then he will have to serve an additional jail term of three months, according to media reports.
Gnanasara had verbally abused Sandya, in the court in 2016. He had accused her of supporting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which led a three-decade-long armed campaign for a separate Tamil homeland.
The LTTE was finally crushed by the Lankan military in 2009 with the death its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran.
According to the government figures, around 20,000 people are missing due to various conflicts including the 30-year-long separatist war with Lankan Tamils in the north and east which claimed at least 100,000 lives.
Sandya's cartoonist husband Prageeth Ekanaligoda was abducted in 2010 by a group having allegiance to the military. She had been searching her husband to find out what happened to him, but to no avail. Though several members of military intelligence were arrested in connection with Prageeth's disappearance, but all have been released on bail.
Sandya's relentless pursuit of justice for her husband earned her an Internal Women of Courage' award in 2017 from US First Lady Melania Trump.
Gnanasara has a history of carrying out Muslim minority hate attacks.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)