The Supreme Court yesterday (20 March) issued a foreign travel ban against Sunil Ratnayake, who was convicted for his role in the Mirusuvil Massacre of December 2000. The order was made at the conclusion of hearings on multiple cases challenging the presidential pardon granted to Ratnayake in March 2020 by then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and its Executive Director, Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, had filed Fundamental Rights petitions challenging the decision to pardon Ratnayake. The former soldier, who had been on death row, was officially granted clemency on 26 March 2020, a move that sparked widespread controversy.

The Mirusuvil Massacre occurred when nine internally displaced civilians, including teenagers and a five-year-old child, were stopped by two military personnel while returning from their homes in Jaffna on 19 December 2000. The victims were blindfolded and assaulted, with one youth managing to escape while the remaining eight were brutally killed and buried nearby.

Ratnayake was convicted on multiple counts of murder and assault by a trial-at-bar in the Colombo High Court in July 2015, following a 13-year-long trial. His appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected on 25 April 2019, with a five-judge bench upholding all nine charges against him, including eight counts of murder.

The Supreme Court has granted all parties eight weeks to file written submissions, with the final judgment reserved for a later date. The travel ban on Ratnayake will remain in effect until a court order is issued.