President Mahinda Rajapaksa is ready to pardon the five Indian fishermen sentenced to death in Sri Lanka if the Indian High Commission in Colombo does not proceed with an appeal against the sentence, Sri Lankan MP Prabha Ganesan has told The Hindu on Tuesday.

“The President said he could pardon and release the fishermen in two or three days, but a court appeal would drag the case up to six months,” Ganesan, who met the President to pledge support in the upcoming elections, said. Rajapaksa wanted him to convey this decision to the High Commission, Ganesan also added.

Officials at the High Commission have confirmed receiving the call from Ganesan, who is the Deputy Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology. The High Commission has informed that they would decide the next step on Wednesday.

The sudden development came on a day when an appeal was filed against the death sentence in the Colombo High Court.

Ganesan has also said that President Rajapaksa had told him he had already discussed the pardon with Narendra Modi. The President has also added that the High Commission was “unnecessarily spending huge sums of money on the appeal.”
(with inputs from The Hindu)