_{M.A. Sumanthiran, representing Kannadasan, addressing the media}

The Vavuniya High Court acquitted and released Jaffna University Fine Arts lecturer and former LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) member, Kanesasundaram Kannadasan, on Thursday, 30 July, over a year after his life sentence was overturned. 

Kannadasan was charged under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) for allegedly recruiting "child soldiers" and facilitating forced abductions. During a trial in 2017, a Vavuniya High Court ruling found him guilty on all charges, and he was issued a life sentence.

M.A. Sumanthiran, representing Kannadasan, appealed the sentence, and after two years of hearings on the appeal, on 22 July 2020, Kannadasan's life sentence was overturned.

The Vavuniya High Court heard Kannadasan's case on Thursday, and Judge Ramanathan Kannan ordered the release of Kannadasan and closed the case due to a lack of additional witnesses. 

Addressing the media, M.A. Sumanthiran commented on the trial stating;

"The case was taken up in court again today for retrial. In that regard, the prosecution sought the court's permission to edit the indictment against him. We objected, arguing that the Attorney General, who had retained the case only for a reconsideration, could not prosecute him for another crime." 

"After hearing arguments from both sides, the judge ordered that the indictment not be amended. It was only after the order was issued that the prosecution announced that it was not possible to present further evidence against him and that the case would be adjourned" M.A Sumanthiran added. 

At the end of the armed conflict, Kannadasan, who was regarded as one of the most well-renowned miruthangam artists in Jaffna, surrendered to the Sri Lankan army and later undertook the government's "rehabilitation program" and was released. He was the director of Tamil Eelam College of Fine Arts while he was a member of the LTTE's political division. He later became a music lecturer at Jaffna University, during which a legal case was instigated against him.

In March 2014, the mother of Manjula Vijayabalan, a child allegedly forcibly recruited by the LTTE, claimed in 2017 that Kannadasan kidnapped and compelled her daughter to join the LTTE in Killinochchi. The following year, Kannadasan was arrested under the PTA and interrogated for several months by the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Department (TID). In 2017, he was found guilty on charges of forcibly abducting people for the LTTE.

Read more here: Jaffna University lecturer remains detained despite acquittal from forced LTTE recruitment charges 

Kannadasan was released alongside three other Tamil political prisoners also arrested under the PTA. 

Read more here: Four Tamil political prisoners acquitted

Last week, Amnesty International stated, "We are deeply concerned by Sri Lanka's continuing use of the PTA to enable arbitrary detention, despite commitments made to repeal the Act. The Sri Lankan government should repeal the PTA and issue an immediate moratorium on its use." Ten other international rights organizations also released statements criticizing the PTA and jointly calling for the release of prominent Muslim human rights lawyer, Hejaaz Hizbullah, from his arbitrary 15-month detention under the PTA. 

In June, the European Parliament passed a resolution that calls for Sri Lanka to repeal its "abusive and draconian" Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and to immediately suspend the "deradicalization" regulation, at the risk of having its favourable trading preferences, under the GSP+ agreement, suspended at the periodic GSP+ review of Sri Lanka in November 2021.