Sri Lankan opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, announced his interest in reintroducing the death penalty for terrorists and drug traffickers at a meeting with reporters outside the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters in Colombo on Wednesday.

He compared the practice of capital punishment in Singapore for such offences when making the public announcement. “Singapore gives the best penalties for terrorism and drug trafficking. We will not deviate from that position, but the judicial process must be transparent, fair and free of influence,” he said. 

Under the previous regime, the former President, Maithiripala Sirisena, discussed reintroducing the death penalty to “replicate the success” of President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called drug war in the Philippines. This has sparked intense criticism from over a hundred human rights organisations that stand opposed to the death penalty.

Following the Easter Sunday Bombings in 2019, Premadasa urged for the implementation of the death penalty, which the country has refrained from implementing since the last execution in 1976. 

The European Union Parliament’s resolution on Sri Lanka, passed in June 2021, expressed concern over Sri Lanka’s policy towards the death penalty. It expressed the EU’s “strong opposition to the death penalty, in all cases and without exception” and maintains that Sri Lanka must “carry out any executions and to abolish the use of capital punishment in the country”. According to the resolution, the EU will assess Sri Lanka’s human rights records and will consider suspending its favourable trading preferences, under the GSP+ agreement at the next periodic GSP+ review in November 2021.

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