More than 1000 prisoners freed to mark Christmas in Sri Lanka
Hindustan TimesSri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe granted an amnesty to more than 1,000 convicts and released them from jails across the country to mark Christmas, a prisons official said Monday. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe granted an amnesty to more than 1,000 convicts Among the 1,004 freed on Monday were Sri Lankans jailed for not being able to pay outstanding fines, Prison Commissioner Gamini Dissanayake said. Sri Lanka is majority Buddhist and a similar number of convicts were freed in May to mark the holiday of Vesak, which celebrates the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death. The latest pardon came after police arrested nearly 15,000 people during a weeklong military-backed anti-narcotics drive that was halted on the eve of Christmas.
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