-By LeN Political Affairs Editor
(Lanka-e-News -10.June.2025, 11.45 PM) In what reads like a script from a low-budget political thriller – complete with a Houdini act, bureaucratic sleight of hand, and a prison chief in handcuffs – Sri Lanka’s penal system has once again offered the nation a masterclass in institutional farce.
Thushara Upuldeniya, the Commissioner-General of Prisons, once lauded as a reform-minded bureaucrat, is now behind bars himself – remanded until Wednesday by Colombo’s Additional Magistrate Manjula Rathnayake. His crime? Allegedly engineering, or at the very least tolerating, the stealthy release of one of Sri Lanka’s slipperiest financial fraudsters, Athula Thilakaratne.
Thilakaratne, a man with more court summons than most Sri Lankans have pairs of shoes, was reportedly inserted — like a forged comma in a forged contract — into a presidential amnesty list intended for “minor offenders” in honour of Vesak. This supposedly sacred list of 388 convicts now appears to have had more ghosts than a budget horror film.
And so, the man who was supposed to keep prisoners in, let one out. In style.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s Vesak pardon, a tradition meant to symbolise Buddhist compassion and second chances, was instantly marred by the jailbreak-that-wasn’t-supposed-to-be.
Thilakaratne — serving a six-month sentence for one financial scam and accused in 30 more cases — somehow found his way out of Welikada Prison, thanks to an amnesty he was never supposed to be on. His name, according to the Justice Ministry, was “smuggled” into the list like a stowaway in a diplomatic convoy.
Upuldeniya’s suspension came soon after, and so too did his arrest by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). One might say it’s a poetic twist that a man who managed cells now finds himself in one.
Thilakaratne, true to form, has since vanished. Police have launched a manhunt — or more accurately, a paper chase — for the financial fugitive. Given his track record, he’s likely sipping tea somewhere remote, watching the evening news and admiring the chaos he left behind.
According to Deputy Solicitor General Delipa Peris, Thilakaratne had been running his own judiciary within prison walls. “He was the unofficial chief justice of cellblock C,” remarked one sarcastic official off the record. “He had more influence over pardon lists than the Minister himself.”
Indeed, Peris alleged that presidential pardons were being picked and chosen by proxy — the prison commissioner allegedly turned the act of clemency into a patronage bazaar, favouring the influential, the connected, and the thoroughly undeserving.
President Dissanayake, clearly stung by the embarrassment, minced no words. Speaking at a recent rally, he thundered that corruption in the prisons was “an open secret” and warned public servants that unless they cleaned up their act, “they will be cleaned out.”
It’s a bold line. But one can’t help but wonder: in a system where even amnesty is auctioned off, how deep must the rot run?
Sri Lanka’s prison system has long been a hotbed of dysfunction — from reports of narcotics and mobile phones flowing more freely inside than out, to prison guards doubling as deliverymen for influential inmates. But this is the first time a Commissioner-General of Prisons has been accused of personally overseeing what amounts to bail by bribery.
Upuldeniya now finds himself the subject of the very same institutional machinery he once oversaw. The Justice Ministry insists his suspension is “temporary, pending full investigations.” But few believe this is anything less than the opening act of a much larger scandal.
“Upuldeniya set a world record,” quipped one sardonic civil servant. “He is the first man to both sign a pardon and get punished for it in the same fiscal quarter.”
The Ministry of Justice issued a rather understated release: “It was decided to suspend the Commissioner-General until the investigations are concluded.” Given that the investigations are now digging into presidential amnesty records, court correspondences, and suspicious omissions, “conclusion” may be wishful thinking.
The case raises urgent questions: Who added Thilakaratne to the list? Who authorised the final draft? Was it merely a clerical error – or a calculated fraud facilitated by someone at the top?
Most troubling is the suspicion that prison authorities are no longer neutral custodians of justice but gatekeepers of favour and convenience. If criminals can walk free on Vesak with forged blessings, one wonders whether next year’s Independence Day might grant them cabinet portfolios.
The political opposition is predictably having a field day. “Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system is now a comedy festival — and unfortunately, the people are paying the price of admission,” said one MP, half in jest.
If Thilakaratne is not found, the embarrassment could deepen into crisis. A man with dozens of pending fraud cases simply walking out under the shadow of Buddha’s compassion is not just ironic — it’s farcical.
The CID will have to dig through layers of bureaucratic sludge to determine whether Upuldeniya was a rogue actor or merely a cog in a larger machine of corruption. Either way, public faith in the rule of law continues to erode.
The larger tragedy is that for every Thilakaratne who escapes, there are hundreds of poor inmates rotting in remand over unpaid fines, minor infractions, and bureaucratic delays.
If justice in Sri Lanka is up for sale — or can be smuggled into a presidential list like contraband — then the question isn’t just whether Upuldeniya is guilty. It’s whether the entire system is beyond repair.
As for Thilakaratne, if he’s reading this, he might do well to know: the police have his face, the courts have his name, and the press — well, we have the punchlines.
Editor’s Note: The Lanka-e-News Political Debate is a daily series raising unfiltered questions about policy, power, and representation. Tomorrow’s topic: “HNB Bank under fire for abusing Banking regulations“? Stay tuned.
-By LeN Political Affairs Editor
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by (2025-06-11 01:27:11)
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