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Court seeks details of death-row inmate Sarpaya’s active FB account
Colombo High Court judge Champa Janaki Rajaratna has directed the Attorney General’s Department to obtain from the Facebook head office in California details of an account said to have been maintained by a double murder convict while in prison.
The department was instructed to obtain the internet protocol address of the Facebook account, details regarding when and where the account was opened, and the contents posted from February 18, 2017 on the account maintained under the name of Hasitha Muhandiram, a former Sabaragamuwa Provincial Councillor a.k.a. Sarpaya.
He was sentenced to death by the Ratnapura High Court in 2014 for killing two people in 2009.
The Court said the information was needed to facilitate the ongoing investigations by the CID.
Counsel Darshana Kuruppu, appearing for the accused, claimed that the FB was updated by his client’s sister and a lawyer friend. The High Court judge queried whether it was proper for an attorney-at-law to do that.
The judge’s request to the AG’s Department came after Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Pieris questioned as to how the social media account was being maintained on behalf of a person who was in prison under sentence of death.
The case will be taken up again on September 28.